2027
by Birdhouse in your Soul
Summary: Maybe the Foundation doesn't just contain the monsters. Maybe it creates them. A young researcher with the Foundation learns this institution may not be all she learned it to be, and finds some friends are better made inside the cells than out of them. SCP Foundation universe. M for strong language and graphic depictions of gore.
1. 01 ASSIGNMENT

**2027**

**_.01 ASSIGNMENT_**

_So this is the life of a B-Class._

Mianna's brother's words echoed in her head as she looked around the suite she'd been brought to. Unlike the intern's dorms she'd been previously living in, B-Class living spaces had windows, furniture, and were nicely decorated. It looked, in all aspects, like a hotel room, the kind she'd stayed at while at conferences in training for the SCP program. She had brought only a small bag with her, which she set on the bed.

"Dr. Skyroko, they'll want you to report for your first assignment," the guard who'd escorted her said from the door.

"Yes," she replied, letting out a shaky breath. "I'm coming." She turned and tried not to look as nervous as she felt. Outside her room, it was back to the cold, bright, windowless white halls of the facility. She walked with her escort to the elevator, where she waited in awkward silence as they descended to the research facility. She looked over at her escort. He looked to be in his late forties, tall and well-muscled, with dark brown hair graying at his temples, a severe expression, and a multitude of scars across his face. He looked vaguely familiar.

Old for a guard, usually they didn't last that long.

Mianna tried not to dwell on that thought as she remembered her brother was being promoted to a B-Class guard position, and her a B-Class scientist. _They always assign B-Class personnel to Keter detail, _she remembered miserably. _But at least the scientists don't usually get killed._

They stepped off the elevator as they reached their floor, and Mianna walked into the crowded, brightly lit room, where a stack of reports of varying thickness were laid out on tables across the room, the guards and scientists peering curiously at them. Each cover had a color and a classification, along with the SCP's number. SCP's classified as Safe were harmless, or even beneficial, and sported a green cover on their report. Euclid was a class of potential danger, marked with yellow, and while Euclids could be terrifying, they were less prone to causing the deaths of the personnel assigned to them.

But the room was, for the most part, a sea of red reports.

Keter class.

Keters were the most dangerous, prone to attacking without provocation, filled with murderous intent, responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of facility personnel. Some were viruses, some were monsters, some were portals to alternate dimensions which consumed a person and spit them out in pieces. Mianna was not feeling optimistic about the next few months.

The room began to segregate into guards and scientists, but Mianna's brother, Cullyn, had made his way over to her side. He smiled reassuringly, slinging his rifle over his back. He had already been outfitted in full body armor, and his wavy brown hair cropped close to his scalp – they'd want him to begin his duties immediately after he was assigned.

"Hey, sis," he said in greeting, stopping in front of her. "Nervous?"

"Yes," she blurted, frowning deeply.

He mussed up her hair, which she tried not to look too irritated about. "Don't be. It's only for a few months. And things rarely go wrong with researchers."

"But what about guards?" she asked worriedly.

He shrugged. "I'll be fine." Somehow, she thought he looked excited. "Alright, looks like they're assigning us. I'll see you later." He walked back to the guard's section with spring in his step, and took his place at the front of the room. The guard who'd escorted Mianna there stood at the podium, and suddenly, she realized where he'd seen him.

"Good afternoon," the man said gruffly into the microphone. "My name is Brunhart Nadmocnost, I am an A-Class personnel, twenty-seventh year. I have been on Keter detail for fifteen collective years, and twelve of those years have been guarding SCP-682."

Hushed gasps and murmurs moved through the crowd of researchers and guards. SCP-682 was perhaps one of the most well-known Keter class SCPs. It was a grotesque reptilian creature, nearly a thousand feet in length, and two hundred feet in height, and could regenerate any damage done to its body, even being completely submerged in hydrochloric acid. Worse still, it was highly intelligent and could speak.

When it did speak, though, it was only about murdering any living thing that crossed its path. It had broken out of containment several times, and was responsible for the vast majority of facility deaths.

Mianna had to fight back her inner scientist. Oh, would it ever be fascinating to study, though.

"Guarding Keter class SCPs is serious work. Some of you will be assigned to Safe or Euclid detail, and you should thank your lucky stars if you are. For the rest of you, you will need to stay in tip-top shape both mentally and physically, you will need to take your job seriously, and you will be trusted with highly sensitive information. You will have to work hard to save the lives of not only yourselves, but your fellow personnel." He smiled grimly. "And in the event of a containment breach, all ranks cease to matter, and we must work together as a unit. Even the D-Class."

D-Class personnel were the lowlifes of the foundation, mostly used as meatshields and test subjects to test the effects of various SCPs. Most were prisoners on death row, but some had been taken into the facility after even minor criminal offenses because the foundation realized they had no family or friends to report them missing.

"With that said, I'll begin the assignment." He looked down, reading from a list. "Hamlin, SCP-096."

Mianna listened to him continue to read off names, but she was fairly certain she heard the first young man whose name had been called dissolve into weeping. "No," she heard faintly over the announcment of names. "You know what they've said it's done..."

"Don't worry about it, just don't look at it, okay? Everyone says it's fine if you don't look at it..."

"Yorke, SCP-049. Branco, SCP-515. Rosenfield, SCP-173. Kraus, SCP-106..."

The list went on, and the guards all looked significantly more nervous as they learned their assignments. Mianna waited anxiously, and didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until-

"Skyroko, SCP-682."

She couldn't keep herself from gasping and looking over at Cullyn. He'd blanched, and suddenly looked as though someone had handed him a death sentence. They practically had.

When all the names had been read off, the guards started back out the door, more solemnly than they had initially. Cullyn tried to give Mianna the same reassuring smile he had when he'd first seen her, but this time it came out more of a pained grimace. She watched him go with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and hoped she'd get to see him before his formal training started.

Meanwhile, Mianna noted that the researchers had started to convene, and she rushed over to join them. The man that stepped up to their podium was tall and thin, with slicked-back black hair and sharp green eyes that regarded the group of young researchers curiously. He also seemed to be sizing them up. He reminded Mianna of a snake.

"Hello, scholars. Some of you may already know me, I am A-Class Lucien Kuloth, fiftieth year..."

Mianna's eyes widened. The doctor didn't even look fifty, much less old enough to have worked in the facility fifty years.

"I have been researching Keter-class SCPs for thirty years. The majority of my research has been on SCP-2023, but I have worked with SCP-106, SCP-682, and many others, as well. Ours is a pursuit of knowledge. Guards are there to contain, but we exist to learn, to glean what knowledge we can from the unusual menagerie of objects at our disposal. With that, I will announce your assignments."

_682, _Mianna thought hurriedly. _I can be with Cullyn._

"Gaskill, SCP-2299. Whately, SCP-734. Kanter, SCP-106. Skyroko, SCP-2027."

Disappointed, Mianna let her shoulders slump as she stepped over to pick up the file for SCP-2027. She had never heard of it, but it was in the 2000 range, which meant it was fairly new to the facility, sometime in the last 25 years.

As the doctor continued calling out names, she thumbed through the "general information" section of the report, glancing it over, but freezing at the first two words in the description-

_Sapient. Humanoid._

Humanoids were perhaps the most terrifying of any SCP. There was nothing human about most of them, they were grotesque, twisted caricatures that perhaps resembled humans, but they were not human. And sapient meant it'd most likely be able to speak, which was even more unsettling. She sighed and snapped the folder shut, knowing she'd have images in the file to prepare her for seeing it the next day.

At least it was only for a few months.

If she made it that long.

* * *

It was dark by the time Mianna had made it back from the orientation to her room, and she flopped onto her bed with a sigh, pulling out the hair tie that held her curly, waist-length chestnut hair in a ponytail. She still had the file in hand, and reached over to turn on her bedside lamp before opening it. She glanced over the first page again.

_SCP-2027_

_Object Class: Keter_

_Sapient, Humanoid_

_SCP-2027 MUST BE DECOMMISSIONED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Until this can be achieved, the links between SCP-2027 and SCP-2023 are to be exhaustively investigated._

Mianna made a face at the decommission order. The only SCPs that were ordered decommissioned immediately were extremely dangerous. SCP-682 was one of the highest decommission orders. As she read on, she remembered that Dr. Kuloth had claimed to have spent most of his time at the facility researching SCP-2023, and vowed to ask him about it if she saw him again. She looked down to the next section.

_Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2027 is to be contained in a 10m x 10m x10m cell which is to be lit from all angles, including the floor. Light panels must also be installed on the backside of the cell door and stairsteps leading into the cell. If SCP-2027 is allowed into shade or darkness of any kind it rapidly gains physical strength and becomes aggressive._

She let out a sigh, relieved that her work area would be well-lit... if perhaps _too _well-lit. She was not terribly interested in reading the physical description, and simply turned to the section with photo documentation, expecting to see something horrific.

She was disappointed in that regard.

The first picture looked like a mugshot, and the face that looked back at her appeared... entirely human. A young man, with sharp, angular – Mianna might have gone so far as to even say _handsome – _features, bearing an expression Mianna found hard to read, somewhere between mild annoyance and plotting how to kill the photographer. His hair was long and wild, falling in jagged layers over his shoulders, and though the picture was in black and white, she assumed it was red from his pale skin and the multitude of freckles covering his face.

_Well, _she thought, relaxing slightly, _he might be dangerous, but at least he's not hard to look at._

She mentally scolded herself on realizing how ridiculous that sounded, and sighed. Her mind wandered back to Cullyn.

_He'll be looking at 682 all day for the next few months..._

Mianna looked through a few more pages of the file, specifically searching for a containment breach associated with this SCP. There were pages upon pages of interaction reports, which she decided to read through later, as it might give her useful information on how to speak to it. Mianna grew more relieved, but also felt more guilty, when she found no documentation of a containment breach in the file. She remembered that 682 had escaped containment more than any other object on the facility.

She jumped and shut the file when there came a knock at the door. "Come in," she said, her voice too high with nervousness.

Cullyn stepped in the door in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and she leaned back against the headboard of her bed and motioned him over. "They aren't starting you tonight?"

He shook his head and scratched at what was left of his hair, sitting down on the end of the bed. "No, but we did get to go look at it for today."

Mianna let out an anxious breath. "And?"

Cullyn shrugged, smirking slightly. "It's huge. And lacking significantly in the 'cute and cuddly' department, let's just say that." He sighed. "My bunkmate from the C-Class barracks was assigned to SCP-999. God, can you imagine? Whose ass must he had to have had to kiss for that?"

She gave a laugh, but it was mostly humorless. "Probably a lot of them... Or he's so incompetent they don't trust him on Keter or Euclid detail. But they usually demote those to D-Class. He must be an A-Class's kid, or something." Mianna thought back to when she'd first started off as a researcher. SCP-999 was one of the first SCPs the young researchers were introduced to, probably to lull them into a false sense of security.

It was a Safe class, a gelatinous mass of translucent orange slime which caused immediate euphoria in anyone who touched it. She'd heard rumors the stuff had even managed to subdue SCP-682 for a brief period of time, but the effect had not lasted. In terms of assignments, guarding SCP-999 was probably the safest job available in the facility. Mianna sighed heavily, cursing her and Cullyn's luck.

"Oh," he said suddenly, tapping the file in her hands. "You didn't even tell me what you got." He noted the red cover with a frown, and she flipped it open.

"SCP-2027," she said, turning the file toward him so he could see the first page.

"Sapient humanoid," he read with a furrowed brow and a frown. "So you're going to have to talk to it, then, and I bet it looks fucking horrific."

"Actually, he looks fairly normal," Mianna informed him, turning to the photograph documentation section.

"'He'?" Cullyn regarded the picture with a frown and looked back to his sister. "It's not a 'he', Mianna, it's an 'it'. SCPs aren't humans, they're not even animals, they're objects."

"Some of them are," she said, a little taken aback at her brother's logic. "But there's certainly SCPs I think we could consider somewhat human-"

Cullyn cut her off. "Not Keter classes."

She looked down after a moment with a sigh. "No, probably not Keter classes."

Cullyn flipped through the rest of the file, glancing it over, seeing exactly what Mianna had just seen. "Well, it's never caused a breach. That's good."

Mianna frowned and took the file, setting it on her bedside table next to the lamp and looking back to Cullyn. "What about 682, though?"

Cullyn shrugged. "Well, the common factor for every breach 682 has caused is that they were doing some major experimentation on it and something went wrong. But the research department doesn't have anything big planned that we know of yet, so I should be alright. The Captain seems-"

"The Captain?" Mianna raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, Brunhart, the head guard. We call him Captain. Anyway, he seems to know what he's doing, so I figure I'm in good hands."

Mianna finally smiled, looking somewhat relaxed that Cullyn was comfortable enough to refer to his fellow guards as "we", and that he seemed to trust his supervisor. "How are the B-Class barracks?"

"Well, I've got my own room," Cullyn said, returning the smile. He looked around. "Nothing like this, obviously, but it's nice to have some privacy."

"Yeah, it is," Mianna agreed, remembering a few days prior when she'd been jammed into tight quarters with fifty other young researchers, and no walls between them.

Cullyn stood. "Well, I'll leave you to it," he said, walking to the door. "We've both got an early morning tomorrow. I'll see you for dinner, maybe."

Mianna nodded. "I'll see you then." Cullyn shut the door behind him and she finally stepped over to the dresser to unpack her bag. She had only four outfits and two pairs of pajamas, but she imagined they'd let her get some new things now that she'd been promoted. Her work clothes, consisting of a sweater, a skirt, and a lab coat, were uncomfortable, and it was a welcome relief to change into her track shorts and a sweater. She'd gotten workout clothes for the days she'd actually had time to go to the facility gym, but by now, they'd all been converted to pajamas.

After setting her alarm for 6 am – late, she was used to waking before 5 am – she slid into bed under the covers, cautiously, still not quite feeling ownership of anything in the room. The bed was too new, it was uncomfortable, her bed in the C-Class quarters had been slept in so much there was an indent she fit comfortably in.

Nevertheless, she rolled over, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep, worrying over how tomorrow would go.


	2. 02 FIRST DAY

**_.02 FIRST DAY_**

Mianna had slept horribly, and she was feeling it as she stepped down the hallway, following the map that had been included as part of her briefing papers. She sighed as she realized she had come to a dead end, the last cell in this hallway.

_Less places to run, if there's a breach..._

She approached the guard, trying to look friendly. "Is this SCP-2027's containment unit?"

The guard, a tall, stocky woman with bronzed skin and orange-red hair, scoffed at her. "Yeah, 'course it is."

Mianna noted her name patch. _ . _And that she was only able to see the SCP label on the wall when the young woman moved out of the way.

"You were standing in the way," Mianna pointed out in her own defense, withdrawing her key-card from her pocket and swiping it on the door. "You don't come into the observation deck?"

"Nnnope," she replied, adding emphasis on the "p". "Above my pay grade. If something goes woolly, there's a panic button on the control panel. Hit that and I'll come to the rescue. Otherwise, I'll be out here, minding my own business, until my relief comes."

Mianna thought the woman was a bit rude, but she didn't entirely dislike her. "Mianna," she said, extending a hand.

"Ismaire," she offered in return, briefly shaking Mianna's outstretched hand.

"Are you the only guard here?"

"Yeah, for the morning shift. I guess it gets more active at night, or something, even with the lights on all the time."

"Interesting." Mianna glanced back at her file.

Ismaire laughed as she finally opened to door. "Didn't study up, eh? I like your style. Read while you're on the clock. Anyway, you've got all the time in the world to research this thing, so an hour or two of reading isn't exactly going to cut into your work."

Mianna was embarassed. Of course, she hadn't even thought about that – B-Class researchers were expected to inform themselves of their assignments. She'd become so used to being briefed by a supervisor, it never even occurred to her to read through the file.

Ismaire noted this in her expression. "Relax, sweetheart. No one's gonna come check up on you, and I don't care what you doctor types do. You get a half-hour lunch break, the cafeteria's up the stairs on the other end of the hall. They stop serving that nasty breakfast shit at eleven o'clock."

Mianna nodded. "Thank you." She finally stepped in the door. It automatically shut behind her.

The observation deck was cold, and the light that filtered in from the window that looked into the cell was so bright, the deck's lights were all turned off. Just below the window was a control panel, with numerous buttons and levers, and a thin manual hung on the wall by a chain next to it. It was worn and dog-eared. In the center of the room was a small desk with a pencil cup and a large office chair. Mianna was a little happier at that. She'd always wanted to sit in one of those chairs.

Breathing shakily, she approached the window to look into the cell. The window was high up – at least twenty feet from the floor of the cell. She looked down. SCP-2027 sat huddled in the corner, motionless but for occasional signs of breathing, seeming to be resting, if not asleep.

_Good, _she thought, _it'll give me time to read._

She'd been right about the hair, she noted, it was red, although she'd never seen red hair quite that color naturally, a deep, vibrant scarlet, the color of fresh blood. She regarded her subject curiously for a moment, then turned back to the table where she'd set down her paperwork. However, just as she turned away, she noticed 2027 stand, looking right at her. She didn't turn back.

_Oh, no._

"_Another researcher?" _a deep, calculating voice came over the intercom, and Mianna was surprised at the clarity of the sound. They'd kept the equipment updated for this one.

_It wants to talk..._

She did turn around then, drawing her shoulders back and trying to look authoritative. She pressed down on the intercom button. "Yes. I am Dr. Skyroko, I've been assigned to study you." He was so tall, and lanky – he looked boyish, in the loose gray jumper. It was the same the guards wore under their body armor, it even had a name badge – but it was emblazoned with his number, rather than any sort of name.

"_Do I have to call you Doctor?" _he asked, looking genuinely curious. _"Don't you have a first name?"_

She sighed, seeing no harm in introducing herself. Declining might make her look afraid, and she didn't want that. "Mianna," she answered.

"_Mianna," _he repeated with a nod.

She was oddly fixated; she wanted to turn away and ignore him, get to her reading, but something kept her frozen there, staring. She wasn't sure if it was because he was up, and moving around, and she didn't want to turn her back on him.

Ultimately, she turned away, opening the file and starting to read again.

_Description: SCP-2027 is presently a Caucasian male of the approximate age of 19; height approximately 6' feet 5" inches; weight approximately 160 lbs. Basal metabolic rate is normal for a human of similar size and fitness, despite ignorance of all bodily needs save breathing and sleeping. _

_SCP-2027 rapidly gains immense physical strength and energy in the absence of light, and is highly prone to aggression in this state. Several decommission attempts have previously been made, including multiple gunshot wounds to the head, neck, and torso, exsanguination by severance of both femoral arteries, and full decapitation. The subject has fully recovered each time, with recovery times varying from 2 hours to 72 hours._

Mianna blinked. This report was beginning to sound a lot like SCP-682's, at least in terms of how many ways they'd tried to kill 2027 and failed.

_Subject is highly intelligent and capable of advanced-level communication, but does not generally display much interest in interacting with research personnel unless left alone for prolonged amounts of time._

She glanced back at the window, frowning. It must have been a while since anyone tried to speak with him, if he seemed that eager to talk to her.

_SCP-2027 has been observed to reach levels of strength nearly fifteen times the expectation for a healthy human of the same build, demonstrated when it was able to [DATA EXPUNGED]_

Mianna let out a frustrated groan. SCP reports frequently contained purposefully missing data, and it always seemed to be at the terribly important parts. She wondered how she could be expected to know her subject well if she kept encountering reports fragmented by secrets.

Restless and anxious, she stood and stepped back over to the window.

Her heart dropped to her stomach when she didn't immediately see 2027, and she jumped when she glanced to the side, just barely able to see him standing in front of the heavy reinforced door at the top of the steps in his cell.

"_Did I scare you?" _he asked, but with none of the mischief or malice she might have expected. Rather, it seemed as though he was testing her, he watched her carefully, gauging her reaction.

That had suddenly made her irritated. "_I'm _the researcher here," she snapped into the microphone, "So if anyone is going to be asking questions, it's going to be me."

"_Alright," _he said simply, with a shrug, hopping down from the top of the steps and landing somewhat ungracefully on the light-panel floor below.

Feeling somewhat less nervous and more like she was babysitting a belligerent child, Mianna pulled the large office chair up to the window and sat, watching 2027 carefully. He watched back, expression blank.

"What are you?" she finally asked, pen and notepad at the ready to document anything interesting he said.

"_I'm not entirely sure," _he answered. "_Your type has been poking and prodding and cutting me open for years trying to figure that one out. You'd think the way your lot boasts about their intellectual prowess, they'd have managed to find out something by now." _He was getting snippy, now.

Mianna glared and jammed down on the intercom button. "Might I remind you that the vast majority of SCPs in the facility are as of yet unidentified fully, or else the Foundation would not exist."

"_Oh, God," _he scoffed, and it was suddenly as if the walls had come down. He had been slightly tensed, choosing his words carefully, but he had now subtly fallen into a slouch and was sneering. "_The Foundation, the Foundation, the Foundation. Is that all you doctors ever talk about? You're infatuated with sacred institution you call the Foundation – it's pathetic, really. At least the guards know they're being used by this operation."_

Mianna wasn't sure if she was pushing too far at this point, but her fear of him was gradually being replaced by immense irritation. "The Foundation does the world a vital service in keeping monsters like _you _away from the general populace!"

He laughed, hard and sharp and mirthless. "_Monsters like me? Would it surprise you to know, Doctor, that I wasn't always classified as Keter?"_

Mianna raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"_I was a Safe class when they first brought me here. Then Euclid, when I turned ten. I've only been Keter for the last seven years."_

Unsure of what to say, Mianna fiddled with her pen anxiously and watched him.

"_Maybe your precious Foundation doesn't just round up the monsters, Doctor. Maybe it creates them."_

The cheap pen casing cracked in her grip. "I'm done having this conversation." To demonstrate her point, she rolled the chair away from the window, back to the desk, where he couldn't see her, and scribbled down some notes on her seemed to struggle with the wording before finally settling on -

_Interaction log 031267 – 0645 hours. _

_SCP-2027 behaves like an absolute jackass._

* * *

Mianna was still feeling irritated when she went up to the cafeteria. Ismaire's relief had already come, it looked like, and she wasn't terribly interested in starting a conversation with the new guard, a short, skinny young man who looked perpetually melancholy.

She carried her files along with her. She had mostly been reading up on the control manual for the observation deck, too annoyed with 2027 to read anything else about him, but she figured she would be more open to it once she had walked away.

It was still early when Mianna got to the cafeteria – quarter after eleven – and the room was fairly empty as of yet. There was a multitude of different food laid out on the buffet tables, and Mianna was impressed by it. It the C-Class cafeterias it had been a limited selection of food, and it didn't ever taste very good.

Mianna settled on a bowl of chowder and some bread, both of which looked better than anything she'd eaten in a long time. She looked around for a place to sit, knowing she should sit by herself so she could get some work done, but as soon as she caught sight of Ismaire, she was already walking over to join her.

Ismaire's tray was piled high – a hamburger, a few chicken drumsticks, three pieces of apple pie, and a bowl of macaroni. Mianna sat down across from her and tried not to look somewhat stunned. "You're going to eat all of that?" she asked, incredulous.

Ismaire glanced up at her and shrugged. "Maybe. Probably. How's your work going?"

Mianna huffed. "Well, so far it's only seemed interested in trying to make me angry."

Ismaire snickered. "And it looks like it's working."

She opened the file and turned to the back with a frown. There were outdated classification reports, and sure enough, the first one read "_Object Class: Safe." _She turned back to her food, politely taking small bites of soup, while Ismaire tore into her plate as though she hadn't eaten in months.

"Was'sat?" She asked, nodding to the file, speaking through a mouthful of hamburger.

"Old reports on 2027," Mianna explained. "Looks like it used to be Safe class." She turned a few more pages. "Then Euclid. It... wasn't Keter until fairly recently." _Seven years ago, just like it said._

Ismaire shrugged. "Somebody probably did something to piss it off, or else they made it more powerful when they were experimenting on it. Scientists are always fucking things up like that. No offense," she added hurriedly, starting on her macaroni.

Mianna was a little offended, but she wasn't going to let Ismaire know that. She tore off a piece of bread and chewed thoughtfully on it. There was so much to read, this was one of the thickest files she'd ever handled.

_Addendum SCP-2027-A_

_Incident 2027-1_

_Subject was exposed to SCP-2023 for a prolonged period of time. SCP-2023 seemed to be communicating with SCP-2027 for several minutes before SCP-2023 conformed to the shape of a knife blade approximately 1'foot long and SCP-2027 used said blade to attack researchers stationed in the containment unit. SCP-2027 and 2023 [DATA EXPUNGED] 6 members of the research team, 4 were critically injured, later terminated. _

Mianna grimaced, remembering that researchers who had been involved in unusual incidents were sometimes killed because they were then believed mentally compromised.

_SCP-2023 was removed from SCP-2027's containment unit and SCP-2027 was subdued after brief communication with Dr. Kuloth. Following Incident 2027-1 SCP-2027 has been reclassified to EUCLID._

Mianna was surprised to find Dr. Kuloth's name in the report. He hadn't mentioned anything about his work with 2027, although she had remembered him saying something about working with SCP-2023. She scribbled a note on her notepad to get 2023's file from the archives, if she could. For now, she shut the folder.

"I miss my cell phone," Ismaire said with a bored sigh.

"Yeah, me too. And paper files are such a pain to carry around and read, but they won't let us use computers." Devices capable of outside communication were strictly forbidden to any personnel but A-Class within the facility, which made things a lot harder for researchers. In an era of unprecedented information technology, they'd been reduced to Post-It notes and manilla folders.

Ismaire laughed grimly. "Well, that's facility life. You get in, they cut you off, and you never get out again."

"It's worth it, though," Mianna blurted, almost automatically.

Ismaire looked skeptical, standing and taking her mostly-empty tray. "Is it?"

"Well, of course. We're doing the world a vital service."

Ismaire looked at her with a mix of disturbance and pity that Mianna found off-putting. "Well, whatever gets you through the day and keeps you sleeping at night, I guess."


	3. 03 MAKING FRIENDS

**_.03 MAKING FRIENDS_**

Mianna returned from her break feeling mildly refreshed, and not quite as angry. She shut the door to the observation deck and sat down at the desk, opening the file again to continue the very long task of reading the whole report.

_Addendum SCP-2027-B_

_Following Incident 2027-1, SCP-2027 has shown an increased inclination to gaining energy through a sort of reverse-photosynthesis, becoming stronger and more energetic in the absence of light. While this had been previously known about SCP-2027, the absence of light now seems to promote immense physical strength and aggression in SCP-2027, shown when it was able to break through the steel door of its containment chamber, and was only subdued by multiple gunshot wounds, stopping it at the observation deck. Containment procedures were henceforth re-evaluated and SCP-2027 was moved to Sector 6 and has been reclassified to KETER._

"_Sorry about earlier," _the voice came over the intercom, startling her out of her focus. She heard 2027 sigh.

She moved over to the window, looking down. He did look sorry, and she sighed loudly in return and replied, "I accept your apology."

_Maybe if I can get it to like me, it'll tell me about itself, and I won't have to read the file. _

"_Really, though, why _are _you so loyal to this organization?" _He wasn't being antagonistic, this time, so she pulled her chair up to the control panel and sat down to speak with him.

"It's something I've wanted to do since I was a child. My father worked for the Foundation, he was a council member, so he got to leave to visit us when my brother and I were little. He'd tell us about the great work he was doing for the good of the world, and I always wanted to follow in his footsteps. I graduated highschool and immediately started an internship at the facility when I was 15."

"_Brainiac," _he teased. _"I read the Odyssey when I was five. Yeah, they used to actually give me books, and teach me things, but they don't any more." _He paused. _"Your father, eh?"_

She shrugged. "He died a few years ago. They didn't tell us how it happened."

2027 looked thoughtful. _"Could be anything in this facility, really."_

Mianna nodded. "There are a lot things that can go wrong, I learned that very quickly."

"_So you weren't surprised when it happened?"_

Mianna tried not to be stunned at how deftly he'd put that. "No... I... Can't say I was. It was never a matter of if, just... When. I was expecting it. It was almost a relief, because once it happened, I knew it was over, and I didn't have to be afraid of it happening anymore." She looked to the side. "It still hurt, though."

"_I can imagine."_

She then glared at him. "I thought we had agreed I was the researcher here? No more about me."

"_No one ever tells me about themselves, though." _He pushed his hair over his shoulder and looked sort of forlorn, and for a moment – just a moment – she felt sorry for him.

_No, _she mentally scolded herself. _No. He's dangerous, he's in that cell for a reason, no matter how harmless he seems. I can't forget that._

"So why did you attack the researchers? What happened with SCP-2023?" She took a pen from the pocket of her lab coat, and looked to her notepad. She tried not to dwell on a very similar question a researcher had asked SCP-682 – _Now, why did you kill those farmers? - _and silently hoped she wouldn't be met with the same response.

"_I don't like to talk about that."_

Mianna gave a frustrated huff and wrote down, _Seems somewhat touchy about Incident 2027-1. _She decided to start with a simpler question. "What do you do all day?"

"_Sleep," _he answered. _"Mostly. I pace the floor, I think about escaping, I think about the way the sirens sound every time there's a breach. I love the sound, I love it. It's exciting and new and it breaks the monotony. I hope for a containment breach. I live for the day I cause it myself."_

_See, dangerous. _"Well, I... alright." She wrote down what he'd just said, trying to keep to his original wording.

He laid back on the floor, crossing his arms under his head. _"I'd kill a lot of them," _he said as though he were talking about something as simple as reading a book or organizing a room. He turned his head and looked right at her. _"I don't think I'd kill you, though." _

Somewhat incredulous, she set her pen down on the notepad and stared at him. "Why not?"

"_Because no one's ever talked to me the way you have," _he explained. _"Actually, no one really ever talks _to _me at all, they sort of talk around me, like I'm not there."_

"Well, good thing to know I'll be safe if you get out, then." She shook her head, and wasn't sure why she found herself asking, "Do you know about SCP-682?"

Surprisingly, "_Yes. Why?"_

"Well... What do you think of it?" She put her pen to paper then, waiting to write all about how 2027 was filled with the same omnicidal rage.

"_It's bitter," _he replied with a shrug. _"It wants to end all life. I don't particularly like most life, but I'm not going to go out of my way to end it all. That seems a bit over-the-top."_

"You think so?" She was somewhat hopeful that it didn't seem quite as murderous as 682.

"_You know what I would like to see, though? All of the researchers that ever came in here and tried to end me, take off all their heads, line them up in a row. Kick them around the cell, maybe. See how hard I'd have to kick them for them to break open on the wall. Mmm, _splat."

All the hopefulness was gone. "Oh."

* * *

Mianna continued reading, only to find that she hadn't really learned much else, and asked 2027 the occasional question, but didn't learn anything there, either. There was a lot of documentation about his physical makeup (his eyes were reflective, like nocturnal creatures) and biopsies they had conducted to try to learn how he survived without food or water, or healed so quickly (they hadn't learned anything) and all in all, the reports seemed to raise more questions than they answered. There was nothing else about Incident 2027-1, or why they'd exposed him to SCP-2023, or anything of the sort.

Tired, with a headache from reading so much, she stood and gathered her things to leave.

"_Where are you going?" _2027 asked, standing.

"My shift is over, I'm going to get dinner and then go home and get to bed. I'll be back in the morning." She wondered why she felt the need to answer, she certainly didn't have to.

He looked satisfied with that answer. _"Alright. See you tomorrow." _

Mianna faltered. Was she supposed to say goodbyes to the dangerous creature she'd been assigned to reasearch? "See you then," she replied, figuring it didn't matter.

There were four guards at the door as she stepped out, and she remembered what Ismaire had said. _It's more active at night. _She then remembered that after her first day, she was allowed to keep her own schedule, as long as she worked an 8-hour shift with one break. _Maybe I should come observe it at night._

The cafeteria was much more crowded for dinner than it had been for lunch, which Mianna found she liked better. There was always such a feeling of isolation, mostly due to the size of the facility, that it was nice to feel like part of a group. It felt safer, somehow.

Mianna settled on pot pie, which she was happy to see they were serving. She hadn't had pot pie in years. She turned back to the crowded tables and saw Cullyn waving her over. It wasn't exactly common for doctors to sit with a rowdy group of guards, but Mianna didn't much care what the norms were at this point.

She smiled as she sat down next to him. "How'd your first day go, sis?" he asked, nearly having to yell over the din of his fellow guards. She looked at his plate. Spaghetti. That had always been his favorite.

"It was fine," she said. "Though, I haven't exactly learned anything yet."

"Calm down, overachiever. You don't need to have it all figured out right away." He grinned and nodded across the table. "Mia, you met Dr. Kondraki?"

Mianna was stunned as she looked across the table. Kondraki was a Foundation legend, notorious for the number of times he'd been reprimanded without being fired. He was so loud, along with the rest of the guards, she hadn't even noticed him sitting there in his wrinkled, pen-marked lab coat. He was a tall, wiry man, with dark hair that simultaneously stuck out in more directions than Mianna would have ever thought possible. His glassed were bent and crooked, and he had a look in his green eyes that hinted at the fact that he was less than completely sane.

His feats included attacking SCP-083, a vampire SCP, by dumping a cup of silver nitrate, garlic juice, and cat urine on it before stabbing it with a wooden stake and shooting it multiple times with silver bullets. It hadn't worked, but by some miracle, Kondraki had survived. And later went on to break into SCP-682's containment unit, taking the beast on a rodeo ride through the facility before they'd finally managed to contain it again.

Before Mianna could answer her brother, Kondraki reached across the table with a hand extended. "Dr. Skyroko! I heard you'd be getting a promotion. Congratulations, where'd they assign you?"

"SCP-2027," she answered, somewhat breathlessly. "Dr. Kondraki, how did you know...?"

"Ah, you must not remember, I used to work with your father. I met you when you were a little tyke. Good man, your father. Damn shame losing him." He frowned, but then grinned. "I'm sure he'd be proud to see how far you both have made it."

"Thank you," she said, unsure of what else to say in response.

"Anyway, 2027. Yes. I've never heard of it." He looked at her expectantly, and it took her a minute to realize he was looking at the file she was holding to her chest.

"Oh! Yes, here." She handed it to him and he took it, hurriedly opening it and skimming it over.

He nodded as he read, half-mumbling fragments of words as he went. He turned the page to the photograph documentation and whistled. "Must be a fun assignment for you, there."

Cullyn gave him an exasperated look, and Mianna frowned, hoping she wasn't blushing.

Kondraki closed the file and then slid it back to her, leaning in close. "Don't get attached, sweetheart." He winked, then leaned back and took a drink of the drink set next to his plate, which Mianna had just noticed was beer.

"Don't you have work tomorrow, Doctor?" Mianna asked quietly.

Kondraki shrugged, gulping down the rest of it.

She frowned and started on her pie. "Where are you assigned to?"

"682," he said with a snicker. "That's how I met your brother, here. I like working there. After all we've been through together, I feel like we've truly bonded, me and 682. It hates everyone, but it's said it hates me the most. I find that truly touching."

Mianna laughed a bit, though she found it odd that he didn't seem afraid of 682 in the least. Still, that lack of fear seemed to have carried over to the guards, who seemed relaxed and joking, a far different tone than yesterday, when they'd all looked like men marching to their graves.

For a moment, Mianna allowed herself to feel happy with them. It was so rare a feeling, in the cold white halls of the facility, she knew she'd have to take it where she could.

* * *

2027 looked as though he had been waiting for Mianna all night when she came back to the observation deck the next morning, pacing down the floor at the back of the cell. She approached the control panel and he stopped, looking up at her. "Good morning," she said simply, not sure what else she should say.

"_Morning? Is it? Odd. I'd have pegged it for the afternoon."_

"You have no sense of time?"

He shrugged. "_I asked for a clock, but they wouldn't give me one, and I've never so much as seen what the outside looks like, at any time of day. But I've read about it."_

Mianna nodded once. "Well, it's morning." And she'd read through his entire file, meaning today would be all talk. She got comfortable in her chair and readied her notepad. "What books have you read?"

"_The Odyssey, War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Old Man and the Sea." _He paused, trying to remember more. "_Moby Dick. The Great Gatsby. Julius Caesar, but that's a play. Animal Farm, 1984. I like Orwell. And Lovecraft."_

"Lovecraft's stories are a bit unsettling, I find." She was scribbling them down as he said them. "Any others?"

"_Where the Wild Things Are. The Very Hungry Caterpillar."_

Mianna had to keep herself from laughing as she wrote. "Those are children's books."

"_They're good books," _he said defensively. "_Didn't you ever read them?"_

"When I was five," she said, and she was laughing now.

"_Really? You weren't reading medical textbooks, or something?"_

"Well, that too. My father would bring home his texts, and I'd look at them. I think that was when I realized this was what I wanted to do. I..." She stopped, looking up. "There you go, tricking me into talking about myself again."

"_I could listen to you talk about yourself all day." _He sat back, leaning on his hands. "_You're not like the other researchers, you know. They seem so mindless in their devotion to their work, but for you... I don't know. It seems to make you happy."_

"Well, the research does, definitely. I love learning things, and fitting it all together into information can use. The rest of it I could do without."

His head tilted to the side, a few strands of hair falling over his eyes. Orange. They were fire-colored. Mianna hadn't noticed until now. "_The rest?"_

"Being cut off from the world." She fiddled with her sleeves. "Knowing I'll die here."

He stared up at her, then shook his head. "_That's a terrible way to think. You don't think they'll promote you to A-Class eventually? You can come and go as you please after that, if I'm not mistaken."_

"Well, I'm sure they would, if I made it that long. I don't know, I just... I walk around with a bad feeling about all this, and..." She shook her head. "I shouldn't be discussing this with you. Which book was your favorite?"

He sighed and looked very disappointed. "_Julius Caesar." _

Mianna wouldn't have guessed that one. "Why?"

"_It was all backstabbing and nastiness. Reminded me of the Foundation a lot." _

Figuring that probably wasn't directed at her, she wrote it down and proceeded to ask, "And what happened when you were reclassified to Keter?" She figured the worst he could do was decline to speak, again.

"_They were starting to see what kinds of wounds I could heal from. It started minor, bruises, cuts – then it was gunshots, then my femoral arteries. Then they cut off my head. I managed to bounce back from all of this, but it's not fun, you know."_

"I don't imagine so," Mianna said flatly, continuing to write.

"_I was tired of it. I wanted to break out, even for a few minutes. I made it to the observation deck, but they caught me there. Gunshots may not kill me, but they certainly slowed me down."_

Mianna nodded a few times. "And when you were classified to Euclid?"

"_I told you, Doctor. I don't want to talk about it." _He sounded annoyed now.

"Well, it was worth a shot. What did you do after I left yesterday?"

"_I waited for you to come back," _he said, still irritated.

She stared blankly at his words she'd just written. Was this a good sign? Perhaps if she could keep this up, he'd become more comfortable talking to her, and he'd tell her about the incident. She felt something else, reading the words over again – pity, perhaps? Or maybe she understood how he felt. She felt isolated in this place, but she could roam the facility freely. She couldn't imagine what it must have been like for him, trapped in that cell, lights on all the time.

"What do the lights do to you?" she asked when the thought occurred to her.

"_They hurt my head. And my eyes."_

"Mine, too." But at least she got to walk away at the end of the day. Then suddenly, she remembered something, and glared at him. "But you brought this on yourself. None of this would have happened to you if you hadn't killed the researchers and tried to escape."

He looked a bit hurt, but only for a moment. Then he looked angry. His face remained calm, but the look in his eyes had changed to calculating what it would take for him to break out. She immediately regretted saying anything. "_You think so?" _He stood and started pacing again. "_You think you know everything, Doctor, you think you know so much about this place and what they do here, but you don't know anything." _His voice started to waver in his rage, and Mianna tried to look away, tried to stand and run for the door, but she couldn't.

"_Because there's nothing that could possibly be going wrong in this facility. Oh, no, not here. Not among the Foundation, God forbid." _He'd taken on a mocking tone, his movements becoming less fluid and more sudden. _"It's not like they see everything as a fucking test subject. It's not as though lives have no value to them. You think they really want to keep you alive, Doctor?! You think there's a huge fucking difference between me and you, because I'm in here and you're out there taking notes?! When there's breach and the gates go down and the sirens go off, and when everything goes to hell, you really think they'll spare so much as a passing thought to keeping you alive?!"_

2027 stopped then, going silent, still a snarl on his face. Only in the silence did Mianna realize how jarring his voice had been over the intercom, and that her hands were trembling as she looked down, still watching him. After a long, tense moment, his expression softened, and he looked horribly guilty.

"_I...I'm sorry, Mianna...I..."_

She looked back, near to tears. "I... No, you're right. My life isn't worth anything to them, even as a B-Class." She rubbed her eyes. "They won't care, if there's a breach. That... That's what I'm really afraid of. There have been breaches while I worked here before, but they were never serious. But when there is a serious one, I-"

"_I won't let anything happen."_

"What?"

He looked at her very seriously. _"If there's a breach. I won't let anything happen."_

She sighed at him. "And how do you plan to back that up?

His brow furrowed and he turned slightly to the side. "_I don't know, but I'll think of something."_

"Why?" was once again all she could think to ask.

"_Because I'll be alone again if you're gone. I don't want that. I've been alone all my life."_

"I won't be stationed here forever," she reminded him, and he started to look panicked.

"_Let's talk some more about Caesar, shall we?"_

Mianna sighed and went back to her notes as he started talking again, worried that she had gotten herself into something there may have been no backing out of.


	4. 04 RESEARCH

**.04 RESEARCH**

Over the rest of the week, Mianna found she still hadn't learned much useful information from 2027, but she enjoyed their conversations.

He was brilliant, sharp as needles. Long hours of sitting alone in his cell had done nothing to dull his intellect, or his wit. Someone like him to talk to would have been useful during her entrance exams to the Foundation – his head was built for numbers and equations, and Mianna's was not. She had very nearly failed the mathematical portion of her exam.

He could do ridiculous operations all in his head. Curious, Mianna had started bringing a calculator along with her, and checking his results. He was nearly always correct.

When he was in a good mood, she was Mianna, when he wasn't, he called her "Doctor", sharp, angry emphasis on the consonants. She'd cautiously tried to ask about Incident-2027-1 a few more times, but it always made him angry. He'd snap at her sometimes, but he'd always immediately apologize. He was temperamental, but she could tell he hadn't mean to upset her, and his apologies were sincere. He was sweet. She forgave him.

Mianna knew she wasn't supposed to be his friend. She wasn't supposed to be talking to him like this. When Cullyn or Dr. Kondraki asked her about how her research was going, she'd vaguely sum it up, or sometimes rapidly change the subject. Cullyn thought nothing of it. Kondraki was starting to become suspicious.

"It's good at math?" he asked one night at dinner, frowning into his clam chowder.

"Yes, and it's well-read. It's especially fond of H. P. Lovecraft's works..."

"Dr. Skyroko," Kondraki said seriously, setting down his spoon. "How is this progressing your research?"

Mianna was startled. "Oh... well... I..."

"I'm all for winging it, I understand just trying anything that pops into your head, and seeing if it works. But you've got to have a goal in mind if you're ever going to get anywhere with it." Mianna wasn't sure how to read his expression, but she thought he looked worried. "So, get a goal. Make everything you do a step towards that goal."

"Well – I do sort of have a goal."

"And what's that?"

"I want to get 2027 to open up to me about Incident-2027-1. There wasn't very much about it in the report, and I think I'll have a better understanding of my subject as a whole if I know more about it."

Kondraki then looked very worried. "Be careful, Mianna. If there's not much in the report, they might not want you to know about it."

"I know, but how can they expect me to do research if I don't know anything about it?"

Kondraki didn't appear to have an argument. "Be careful, that's all I'm saying."

Mianna seemed to forget all that when she went back. 2027 was easy to talk to, it was easy to forget she was in a facility that contained dangerous anomalies, it was easy to forget that she was speaking to him over an intercom, and they were separated by a foot-thick concrete wall.

"When I was an intern researcher once I got lost," she was telling him one day. "I went with the wrong group. I was supposed to be on Safe detail for the day, but the group I followed was going to study 106! So as they're describing the thing, all I can think is, 'Wait, this doesn't sound safe at all!' And then I saw the number on the cell and I knew I'd gone to the wrong place."

2027 was watching her with an amused smile. "_So what did you do?"_

"Well, I turned around and tried to leave, but the supervisor saw me and said 'Where do you think you're going? You don't get to leave just because you're scared!' And I tried to explain to him that I'd gone with the wrong group, but he wouldn't hear it. So I got to sit there and listen to him talk about how they weren't _entirely _sure if they had 106 fully contained. I thought we were all going to die. Then later I found out that the group I was _supposed _to be with got to spend the entire day playing with SCP-999." She sighed, but was laughing slightly. "And that's why I got really good at learning my supervisors' names and faces."

"_I don't think I know about 999 or 106." _He looked up at her expectantly.

"They call 999 the 'Tickle Monster'," she explained. "It's just a big blob of orange gelatin. And when you touch it, you just – you get really happy. It always wants to hug everyone... It's cute." She frowned. "106, on the other hand, is a predatory humanoid that rules over an alternate dimension, and pulls anyone with a debilitating injury, like a broken leg, into that dimension. When it spits them back out again... Sometimes they're dead, but they usually come back still alive. With acid burns. They never live more than a few hours."

Surprisingly, he seemed to find that amusing. "_Kills them slowly. I'd like to break a few legs and watch that happen."_

It was always just slightly jarring when he said things like that, but Mianna was growing used to it. "I think you need a spell in 999's pen."

"_Hmm, I doubt that would help my murderous intent. My grudges are pretty strong," _he said, albeit mostly playfully.

Mianna realized she hadn't taken any notes. "Don't you want to be happy, though?"

After a pause, "_I _am _happy. I don't need 999 for that, I've got you."_

Mianna blinked at him, sure that this time she was blushing.

But his expression as he looked back turned grim. "_How much longer do you have here?"_

"I'm not sure," she said, suddenly anxious about it herself. "But we're only in the first week. Don't worry too much about it yet." She didn't want to think about it – she didn't want to be assigned anywhere else.

"_Only a week, eh? Feels like longer."_

"That's because we've spent almost 30 hours talking," she said, standing. "I'm going to get some lunch. I'll be back."

"_I'll be counting the seconds," _he said, and she doubted he was kidding. "_There are 1800 in 30 minutes, in case you were wondering."_

"I wasn't," she laughed, "But good to know." She stepped away from the controls and walked out into the hallway, spring in her step as she made her way to the cafeteria.

Ismaire was already there, and she waved when Mianna walked in. She grabbed a plate of salad before moving over to sit across from her. She'd been spending all her lunch breaks with Ismaire, partially because she was the only person Mianna had talked to.

"I can't stand that kid who comes to relieve me every day," Ismaire said. She was too casual to bother with greetings, most of the time. "He's so depressed. He always looks at me like he's expecting me to say something like, 'Oh, no, don't worry, you don't have to relieve me. Go on home, kid, I'll stand here all day'. Nope, no thank you, see ya."

Mianna laughed. "He looks at me like that too."

"You've been truncating your lunch breaks," Ismaire then pointed out. "Is your work really that fascinating? I wish I got that excited about my job."

"Well... Yes, it is really interesting. I'm enjoying it a lot."

Ismaire smirked at her. "It's not just cause he's cute, is it? I've seen the file, you know."

"Wh-what? No! Of course not!" Mianna glared at her. "No, that... Has nothing to do with it." It really didn't, actually, although... It certainly wasn't hurting anything.

"Whatever." But Ismaire was laughing.

Mianna huffed. "Where are your other assignments?" She realized she had never asked.

"Well, after lunch, I sleep, and my night shift is 682. I start guarding 2027 around four in the morning."

"My brother guards 682 during the day, but he's on a longer shift, I think. That's his only assignment."

Ismaire nodded. "Yeah. Some of these guys, they can handle just doing one thing, but I like to switch around. I get way too bored in one place." She thoughtfully drank down her soda. "682 doesn't scare me all that much, you know."

"Really? It doesn't?"

Ismaire looked more gravely serious than Mianna had ever seen her. "Mianna, of all the ways to die in this place, the SCPs themselves are the least of my worries. They should be the least of yours, too."

Mianna thought back to what 2027 had said. _At least the guards know they're being used by this operation._

Ismaire shrugged, standing and taking her tray. "Anyway, have fun with your boyfriend." She messed up Mianna's hair, and darted away, cackling, before Mianna could do anything about it.

* * *

Mianna was planning to spend most the next day, her day off, in her apartment. As it turned out, Ismaire's day off coincided with hers, and somehow, she'd found out where Mianna lived.

"How did you find my apartment?" she asked incredulously when she opened her door to find Ismaire standing there. Ismaire shrugged and walked in without being invited, so Mianna simply shut the door behind her. "That's supposed to be classified information."

"You might have left your key-card in the cafeteria after dinner yesterday." Ismaire reached into her shirt and handed it over, and Mianna hesitantly accepted it. "You're gettin' a bit spacey. I'd watch it if I was you."

"Thank you," Mianna said, and she was grateful, cursing herself for making such a stupid mistake. She nodded to a bag slung over Ismaire's shoulder. "What's that?"

"DVDs," Ismaire replied with a mischievous grin. "We don't have cable anywhere, but there's an assload of movies in the rec room. I figured you could use a movie day after working so hard."

Mianna sighed. "Are you allowed to do that?"

"No," Ismaire laughed, "but who cares? Where's your remote?"

* * *

Mianna felt less rested than ever after her movie-marathon with Ismaire – she hadn't watched a movie in years, and probably hadn't ever watched that many in a row. She'd forgotten how exhausting it was.

The day went slowly, after the movies – There wasn't a lot to do, and Mianna found herself happy to return to work in the morning. Ismaire didn't seem to share her enthusiasm.

"What's wrong with you?"

"I had a date after I went home last night," Ismaire grumbled.

"A date?" That was an unusual thing to hear. "With who?"

"Jack Daniels," Ismaire said, rubbing her forehead. "It's a standing date. Every Friday."

"Oh." Mianna laughed. "Have a banana. It'll help."

"Yeah, okay _mom." _

Mianna ignored her and swiped her key card, entering the observation deck. She carried only her notepad with her now, and none of the files. She didn't need them any more, she figured.

"_Mianna?" _She heard 2027 say over the intercom. He sounded odd. She walked over to the window, frowning.

"Yeah, I'm here." He looked panicked, but seemed to relax on seeing her.

"_You weren't here yesterday," _he explained. "_I thought you weren't coming back."_

Mianna rubbed her forehead. "Oh, I... I forgot to tell you it was my day off. Every Friday."

"_Oh." _He looked unsure of what to do with himself, and fidgeted. "_Well... Good."_

Mianna sat in her chair and frowned at him. "You look awful," she observed. And he did. His eyes were distant and unfocused, dark shadows under them.

"_I haven't been sleeping, really. You come to talk to me in the morning. I can't really sleep at night, I get too restless. And I waited for you all day yesterday."_

"Oh," Mianna said, feeling guilty. "Well... Why don't I start coming at night, then?"

"_Can you do that?" _he asked.

"Sure," she said with a nod. "As long as I work a full shift, they don't care when it is."

And so, over the next week, she gradually started coming in later, and later, until she was sleeping when the sun was up, and waking as it went down. It was a difficult adjustment, and she'd missed quite a few dinners, but 2027 was much more energetic and lively in the nighttime hours. He'd perked up and looked much better after a few days of getting enough rest.

Cullyn, Kondraki, and Ismaire had taken note of Mianna's increasing absences, though.

"Where've you been?" Kondraki asked her one night with a smirk. "Working hard?"

"Yeah," she replied as she sat down across from him, next to Cullyn. Ismaire was here at the table too, but like Mianna, this was breakfast for her, not dinner.

"Yeah, I haven't seen you in the mornings. Or at lunch."

"SCP-2027 is nocturnal, and I think being awake in the mornings was starting to have an impact on its health. So I switched over to going at night," Mianna explained, yawning.

Cullyn looked concerned. "You're actually worried about what's better for the SCP?" he asked.

"It's a good call, from a research standpoint. It may behave differently at a different time of day, and since Mianna is the only researcher, she'll have to make those observations herself," Kondraki defended, then looked to Mianna. "Though, I do hope you've got a goal in mind for doing this."

"Of course," Mianna answered, and he left it alone, but still looked skeptical.

It took a while to adjust. Mianna found herself sleepy and yawning through a lot of conversations with 2027, which seemed to concern him.

"_Are you sure you want to keep working this shift, Mianna?" _he asked, for the millionth time.

"_Yes, _I'm sure," Mianna replied, for the millionth time. She then thought of something that she'd somehow managed to go all this time without asking. It had been almost three weeks. "2027, do you... Do you have a name? Or are you just 2027?"

He looked surprised that she'd asked. "_Yeah," _he said after a moment. "_Yeah, I do. Albtraum."_

"Albtraum," she repeated, thinking back to her high school German classes. "That means 'nightmare'."

He smiled slightly. "_Yeah. Doctors started calling me that after I turned Euclid."_

She sighed, leaning on the edge of the control panel. "Are you ever going to tell me about what happened that day, Albtraum?"

He frowned, but didn't seem angry this time. "_Someday, I will. Not yet."_

"Well, I hope someday is soon, because we're going to run out of things to talk about."

"_Never," _he answered with a grin. "_You can just tell me all your stories over again. I never get tired of them."_

"Which do you want to hear again today?" she asked wryly.

"_The time you broke the high school quarterback's arm during the graduation ceremony because he called you a robot."_

"You're particularly fond of that one, aren't you?"

"_Don't fault me for enjoying an exciting story about a smart, pretty girl handing a dumb Neanderthal his ass."_

Mianna laughed, and told the story again.


	5. 05 REMINDERS

**.05 REMINDERS**

In the fifth week of her research, Mianna was called to speak with Dr. Kuloth.

"He wants to see me in his office?" Mianna looked from the young office assistant to the slip in her hands. She set it on top of the file she held.

"Yes, Doctor. His office is on the third floor, all the way on the east end of the hall."

"Alright, thank you." Mianna set off in that direction with a frown, wondering what Dr. Kuloth wanted to see her for. She climbed the stairs to the third floor and went straight to the end of the hall, where she found the door marked _Dr. Lucien Kuloth. _She took a shaky breath and knocked.

"Come in," he answered, and she opened the door.

The inside of his office was huge, with a high, sloping ceiling, and an enormous window that gazed out onto the mountainous area surrounding the facility. It was beautiful, and Mianna found herself staring.

Dr. Kuloth stood from his desk and laughed slightly. "Ah, yes. The outside. Something to look forward to for your next promotion, isn't it, Doctor?"

Mianna nodded.

He motioned her to sit at the chair in front of his desk, and sat down in his own chair. "Please." She hurriedly sat, holding her files tight to her chest. "How is your work going?"

"Quite well," she replied, nodding. "Ah...Al- SCP-2027 seems to be opening up to me, which is good-"

"Ah, yes. I've heard that, from the audio recordings of your interactions." He sighed. "But what methods have you tested for its extermination?"

Mianna was taken aback. "I... I'm sorry?"

Dr. Kuloth looked annoyed. "Is that 2027's file you've got there?" She nodded. "Open it."

Suddenly very nervous, Mianna did so.

"Read that first line, for me." Dr. Kuloth's voice was dangerously soft.

Mianna felt a lump form in her throat. "SCP-2027 must be decommissioned as soon as possible." Her voice sounded distant to her own ears.

"And you do know what decommission means, don't you?"

Mianna nodded. "Yes, I know. But... Dr. Kuloth... I wanted to find out more about Incident-2027-1, and I thought..."

Anger flickered somewhere in his bright green eyes. "Finding out more about Incident-2027-1 will not help you learn how to decommission 2027. Everything you need to know to properly conduct your research is contained in that file. Dr. Skyroko... If I find I have reason to believe you are emotionally compromised, I will remove you from this assignment. Is that understood?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "Understood, sir."

He smiled. "Good. You are a capable researcher, and I expect to see results soon."

Mianna nodded, and stood, her legs feeling numb. She walked out of the office and back towards the containment unit with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

* * *

Albtraum was waiting eagerly when Mianna entered the observation desk, but he frowned when he saw her. _"Mianna... Is everything alright?"_

She let out a shaky breath. "No... I... Dr. Kuloth called me in before the start of my shift." She looked down. She didn't want to look at him. "He's not happy with the work I've done. I have to start testing ways to decommission you."

"_Oh," _answered simply, disappointed, but without surprise. He sounded as though he'd been expecting that. "_Mianna..."_

"I'm sorry," she said flatly. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She sighed instead. "I didn't want to have to-"

"_No, I know. It's alright." _He sighed. _"I... before you get to that... Can I tell you about Incident-2027-1?"_

She'd been trying to get him to talk about it for over a month, but suddenly, she didn't really want to hear about it. Miserable, she tugged at a loose string on her sleeve. "Yeah."

"_I don't know how I came to the facility," _He started. "_I've been here as long as I can remember. My file says I was found as a young child, with the odd abilities I had to go without food and water, gain energy from the absence of light, and heal any injury. When I was a safe class, there were a lot of researchers. They'd ask me questions. They were nice at first. Then, when talking got them nowhere, they started cutting me open."_

Mianna continued listening, the lump that had been in her throat growing painful.

"_One doctor wasn't exactly alright with strapping a six-year-old to a table and slicing me open without so much as a sedative, and he tried to get them to stop. They wouldn't, but he convinced them to give me an anesthetic, at least." _He looked up. "_Dr. Kuloth was the supervisor of that research team. They tried operating on me for years, taking all my organs out and monitoring them individually. I was conscious through a lot of that. They had them hanging all around me by wires, everything hooked up to a different machine... My heart was right in front of my face."_

Mianna felt she would be sick.

"_They didn't learn anything from doing that... So one day, after they had put me back together again, Dr. Kuloth decided to bring in SCP-2023. He told me that me and 2023 had a connection, and he wanted to see how we interacted."_

"What was it?" Mianna asked, finally looking up at him.

"_A dark, amorphous mass. It reflects no light, and can form to any shape at all. Sentient. Hard as diamond when solid," _Albtraum answered. _"And still a Safe class, despite what happened. The research team brought it in and told me to touch it. Some of it crawled up to my arm. It started talking to me, but the researchers couldn't hear it. The one... The one who had tried to keep them from operating on me all those times... He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't hear him, because 2023 was talking."_

He paused for a very long time, and for a minute, Mianna thought he wasn't going to continue.

"_It told me I was here because of them. The doctors. The researchers. It turned into a knife. 'Kill them all,' it said. 'Escape.' At the time, I... I saw no reason not to. Dr. Kuloth was at the observation deck watching, and I... He didn't set off the alarm when I started killing them, not until I had finished... I cut out some of their hearts. I cut off some of their heads."_

Mianna stopped him, not wanting to hear more. The rest was in the file, anyway. "Who was the doctor who tried to help you?"

Albtraum looked away. "_Oh. His name was... His name was Dr. Skyroko."_

Mianna stared, and didn't immediately realize she was gaping. She couldn't quite believe what she'd heard. "My father," she heard herself say.

"_Yes. I..."_

"You killed my father," she said, suddenly shaking. Now she _was _crying. "He helped you, and you killed him."

He stood, eyes going wide. "_Mianna, no, wait... I-"_

"And to think I thought you were different!" She stood abruptly, dropping her notebook and pens and the file to the floor, pages scattering everywhere. She was so angry her shoulders hurt in their tension, her hands shook. "I thought I could trust you! I thought you were different from the other monsters in this facility, I thought we were friends! Would you kill me too, just because some talking mass of who-knows-what told you to?!"

"_No, Mianna, please," _he begged, and she was angry all the more. "_I wasn't done..."_

"I don't want to hear what justifications you're going to try to make. I... I'm done, Albtraum. 2027. I can't believe I even called you by a name. You don't deserve it." She gathered up her papers, messy and out of order, and stomped out of the deck, slamming the door behind her. The guards started to ask where she was going, but gave up when she rushed past them.

She knew she might get in trouble for ending her shift so early, but she didn't care. Hurt, angry, and so upset she could barely focus on her own footsteps, she rushed back to her apartment. Everything felt wrong. She didn't know what to do. She tossed her folder on the dresser and shut her door.

She slid to the floor, back pressed against the wall, and cried. She hated herself for letting it go this far, she hated Albtraum for leading her to think they were friends. She hated the cold, blank halls of the Foundation, and the fact that she had no idea just how much longer she would be made to stay.

She couldn't go back to Albtraum's cell, she decided, and angry as she was, she still wasn't happy with the idea of another researcher going in there and finding a way to kill him. But she couldn't go back. When she was done crying, she stood, stepping over to the bathroom to wash her face. She sniffled, and hiccuped a few times, and scrubbed at her eyes until it was no longer blatantly obvious she'd been crying. She inspected herself in the mirror with a sigh, and then stepped out of her room, and back towards Dr. Kuloth's office, where she'd been not an hour earlier.

The door was still open when she approached. He looked up as she neared, looking surprised to see her. "Dr. Skyroko. Something I can help you with?"

She exhaled slowly, then, "Dr. Kuloth... I'm not sure I can continue researching 2027 successfully." She was worried what his reaction would be, it was hard to gauge his expression as she talked.

After a moment, he stood and sighed. "That's quite alright, Dr. Skyroko. I appreciate your knowledge of and willingness to admit to your own limitations. Why don't you take the rest of the night off, and I'll have you reassigned tomorrow. I'm closing my office for the night, but I'll have them run an assignment to your room first thing in the morning."

Relieved, Mianna rubbed her eyes again. "I'm sorry, Dr. Kuloth."

"Not a thing to be sorry about," he assured her. "Sometimes researchers just don't click with their assignments."

_Or they do, and then it turns out the assignments were heartless monsters all along. _"Yeah."

"Get some rest for the night. You've been keeping a nocturnal schedule, if I'm not mistaken? You'll need to get back to regular time for your next one, most likely."

Mianna nodded. "Thank you." She turned to leave the office, and wandered for a while down the hall, feeling lost and alone, before hearing the clatter and commotion of the cafeteria, remembering that dinner was still being served. She hoped the 682 staff would still be there.

They were, and she was happy to see them, smiling as she approached the table without getting any food.

"Not gonna eat tonight?" Cullyn asked her.

"I'm not feeling well," she explained. It wasn't a lie. She still felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach.

"I thought you had work?" Kondraki asked. He was drinking a beer again with his french dip sandwich.

Mianna shook her head. "I've been reassigned."

Kondraki's eyes went wide and he struggled not to choke on his beer. "What?"

Mianna shrugged as Cullyn and Ismaire stared at her. "I just... It wasn't going well. I don't think my research was progressing."

"Bullshit," Ismaire grumbled. "You were enjoying that assignment. What the fuck happened?"

"It just wasn't..." Mianna looked at Cullyn, who was regarding her with concern. Would it be better if he didn't know? Probably. She sighed. "It wasn't working out."

Ismaire took in a breath to argue, but Kondraki held up a hand. "If you weren't feeling right about it, reassignment is probably the best thing for it. As long as you're sure this is what you really want."

Mianna sighed. It wasn't what she wanted at all. She wanted to turn time back to yesterday, when Albtraum had been her friend and nothing was wrong and at least for the times she was working, she felt comfortable and happy. Nevertheless, she shrugged and said, "Yeah."

Kondraki screwed his mouth to the side, looking unsatisfied with her answer. Ismaire was still grumbling about "bullshit", but seemed to have mostly dropped it. "I can still come over and watch movies, yeah?"

Mianna nodded, a ghost of a smile finally showing through her expression. "Yeah, of course."

* * *

Mianna hadn't slept hardly at all when she returned to her apartment. Part of it was having to once again change sleeping schedules, but the other part of it was Albtraum's words echoing through her head. _I cut out some of their hearts. I cut off some of their heads. _Which did he do to her father, she wondered? Which would he do to her, given the chance?

She groaned when she heard a knock at the door. She hadn't slept yet, and there wouldn't be a chance to now. She dragged herself out of bed. It was an almost painful feat.

The same office assistant who had summoned her to Dr. Kuloth's office the day before, this time holding another thick, red-covered file. Mianna thanked him and took it, shutting the door and setting it on the bed as she dressed for work. She glanced at the number as an afterthought. 2066. She wondered what it could be.

When she had dressed and was making her way to the elevator, she started reading. _Sapient, humanoid. _ She sighed. Seemed she would always be assigned to something she'd have to talk to. She glanced at the map. The cell was on the floor below where 2027 was. Two cells from being directly under it. She shook her head and tried not to think any more about Albtraum.

As she walked down the hall, she briefly glanced over the report. _Caucasian female __of the approximate age of 20; height approximately 5' feet 8" inches; weight approximately 170 lbs. Subject has an extremely high metabolism and requires upwards of 3500 calories a day, even during periods of very low activity, but never seems to gain weight from this excessive consumption of food. SCP-2066 prefers that most of its nourishment come from human flesh. 1 (one) D-class personnel is to be fed to SCP-2066 weekly._

Mianna was a bit stunned, and found that she had almost stopped walking. She was actually being instructed to feed living humans to her subject. Gritting her teeth, she kept walking until she reached the door.

_Only one research personnel is permitted to communicate with SCP-2066 at a time, and at least one other personnel is to monitor interaction at all times. SCP-2066 appears to have a persuasive effect on some it speaks to and has been documented luring researchers into its containment unit._

_Lovely. _Mianna closed the file and stepped into the observation deck. It was much larger than the one in Albtraum's cell, and there was a small kitchen in the corner, complete with a sink and small refrigerator. At the table in the center of the room sat a serious-looking young researcher with slicked-back brown hair and too many pens in his coat pocket. He looked up and stood when he saw her. "Ah. Dr. Skyroko. They told me you were transferring to this shift on short notice." He sharply extended a hand. "Thomas Wallen."

"Nice to meet you," Mianna said simply. "I suppose I don't need to introduce myself, since you've already done that."

He looked at her carefully, as though he wasn't sure whether to be offended or not, ultimately seeming to let it go. "Yes, well. It's feeding day."

"_It's feeding day!" _She heard 2066 repeat over the intercom. "_About goddamn time."_

Mianna found herself amused, in spite of everything. "Can I talk to it?" she asked.

Wallen shrugged and sat. "If you want to. We don't usually."

Mianna stepped over to the window and looked down into the cell. It seemed so dark compared to Albtraum's. "Good morning," she said simply.

"_Morning," _2066 replied. She was a lean, muscled young woman with a head of thick, silver-white hair and a scar across her face, running over her nose. Like many humanoid SCPs, she wore a gray jumper with a patch that bore her number. _"Watch those adjectives, though, the morning is never 'good'."_

"No, I suppose it isn't," Mianna agreed, looking around the cell. Unlike Albtraum's, which was completely, pristinely empty, 2066 got a bed, a small bathroom stall, a sink, and a set of weights with a bench in the corner.

"_Who pissed in your Cheerios?" _2066 asked, lazily crossing the room and sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I d- I was just agreeing with _you._"

2066 scoffed._ "Yeah, but I'm always like this. I get the distinct impression this isn't the usual you." _She looked Mianna over, sizing her up. "_You're a cutie. Where'd they transfer you from?"_

Mianna huffed and tried not to be too irritated. "I was researching 2027."

2066's eyes widened and she seemed about to say something, but she was then distracted by the lower gate opening. Mianna saw them shove in a young man in an orange prison jumper, hands tied behind his back. He had shoulder length blonde hair with fading streaks of red dye and a faint layer of stubble over his chin. 2066 moved towards him slowly, and Mianna recognized her motions. Predatory. He looked absolutely terrified. He stood straight and looked at her.

"_All kinds of cuties around this place today." _She looked him over. "_What on earth did you do to end up in my food bowl?"_

"_I-I just... Robbed a convenience store," _the young man replied.

2066 laughed. "_Oh, so you're one of those 'no friends or family' cases. I get it. I see." _She nodded. "_I almost feel sorry for you, you know. And you are awfully gorgeous." _She pouted slightly, and looked up at the window. "_Can I keep him?"_

Mianna was not quite sure how to respond, but Wallen sighed loudly. "You only get one a week, 2066. Use them how you will."

"_Oh, but you'll bring other food."_

"It does this a lot," Wallen explained to Mianna. "But it gets bored fairly quickly. I guarantee, it'll eat the kid within the hour."

"_Says you," _She said, sticking her tongue out though Wallen couldn't see her. She turned back to the young D-Class with a grin. "_What's your name?"_

"_Kaezo," _he answered shakily, looking as though he was not quite sure all of this was real.

"_Riley," _she said in return. "_Make yourself at home. One cutie at a time, now, I'll talk to you later." _She looked back to Mianna as Kaezo hurriedly made for the bench in the corner. "_You said you were working with 2027?"_

Mianna nodded, still not quite sure what to make of the girl's behavior.

She looked expectant, and stared at Mianna skeptically. "_And? What are you doing here?" _

"It just... Wasn't working out," Mianna replied. Then, figuring at this point she wouldn't do much harm in talking about it, "He got me to trust him and then told me he killed my father."

"_You sure about that?" _She raised an eyebrow. "_Even if he did, you know, there must've been a good reason. If you ask me, Al never killed a man that didn't need killin'."_

Surprised, Mianna stared. "You know him?"

"_Oh, sure. They put us in a cell together a while back hoping we'd kill eachother, but we made friends instead."_

"Oh," Mianna said simply in response. 2066 shrugged at her and moved to go talk to the poor young man in the corner, which Mianna grimly regarded as "playing with your food". Feeling somewhat disgusted and upset, she went back to the table to read through the file.

_Subject displays high speed, strength, and agility. Subject has a second form, henceforth referred to as SCP-2066-1. There appears to be no common factor in incidents involving emergences of SCP-2066-1. Refers to itself as 'Wrath' and displays strength and speed up to twice that normally displayed by SCP-2066. Due to the extreme danger posed by SCP-2066-1, no tests are to be conducted on it and the Sector is to be put on lockdown in the case of an emergence._

Mianna could do no more than sigh. She shut the file and listened to the intercom, where she could hear 2066 saying, "_...After they leave, though. Even I have a sense of propriety, you know, and sex is not a spectator sport." _

Even more disgusted, Mianna decided she'd be better off not listening to the intercom, and put her head down on the desk, trying to ignore everything.


	6. 06 VERIFICATION

**.06 VERIFICATION**

"You look terrible," was Kondraki's frowning greeting as Mianna stepped up to the table with a bowl of chicken soup.

"I feel terrible," she confirmed, sitting down. Cullyn regarded her with concern. "I slept through most of my shift, and the other researcher wasn't happy."

"You might need to take a sick day," Cullyn suggested. "Really, Mia... You don't need to push yourself this hard."

"No, I'm not sick," she told him. She regarded her meal of choice with a frown and said, "Well, maybe I am. But it's nothing that should prevent me from working."

"Kiddo, there's no shame in a sick day," Kondraki said gently. "If they have any important research to do, they can either find someone else or they can wait till you're good and better."

"How are things going with 682?" Mianna asked abruptly, wanting to talk about anything but her own assignments.

Cullyn coughed. "Well, it's... They say it's coming out of its dormancy cycle."

Not what Mianna was hoping to hear. "Oh... That's..."

Kondraki shook his head and held up a hand. "So they filled the containment unit with about a billion dollars worth of hydrochloric acid to keep it handicapped, at least."

"A b-" Mianna was stunned. "A _billion _dollars worth? How much acid _is _that?!"

"A lot," Kondraki replied, and Mianna rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway, everything should be fine. They don't _want _the thing to get out, and they've certainly got the means to keep it from doing so. Every time there's a breach, we learn from it."

Ismaire approached the table then, tripping as she went and grinning like a fool. "Mia," she said then, very seriously. "It's Friday. Yooou-" she pressed her index finger against Mianna's nose "-weren't home."

"Oh, I was working, since I got reassigned my day off is Sunday..." Mianna said. Then realized, "You're drunk."

"I am _wasted," _Ismaire laughed, shoving Cullyn out of his seat and taking it. Cullyn caught himself and stood, grumbling.

Mianna looked down, not sure how to feel about any of this. "I'm really tired," she told them. "I think I'm gonna go home for the night."

"What? No, stay! Come onnnn," Ismaire whined.

Kondraki shook his head. "She's not feeling well."

Ismaire sighed dramatically. "Fine, you're no fun. See you later, stick-in-the-mud!"

Mianna was unable to keep herself from giving a laugh and stood, taking her bowl, which she'd barely touched. She dumped it in the waste receptacle, set it on the dish pile, and headed out of the cafeteria.

She glanced at the bridge to the apartments, but didn't move that direction. Instead, she headed to the elevator and stepped in, examining the directory. _Archives – B1. _She pressed the button, hoping there would still be someone there by the time she arrived.

The basement archives were even colder than the rest of the facility, and dimly lit. It felt unsettling. A bored-looking technician sat at a desk in front of a mass of wires, containers, and computer equipment.

Mianna had no idea why she was doing this. "I need to see a decedent report," she said to the technician.

"Name?" he droned, reaching for her key-card as she handed it over.

"Dr. S. Skyroko."

He blinked, looking at her nametag. "Uh-huh." He typed it in swiped her card, met with a short series of low-pitched beeps. "You don't have access to that file. You have level 3 clearance, you need level 4." He handed back her card. "Sorry."

She let out a frustrated breath, but stopped abruptly, jumping, when she heard behind her, "I've got clearance," and an arm reached past her, handing over a key-card.

"Dr. Kondraki..." She turned to look at him.

The technician huffed and swiped his card. "Well, I hope you know those files are for your eyes only." The machines whirred and the technician picked up a file as it fell into the box, handing it to him.

"Yeah, I know," Kondraki said with annoyance, snatching the file and turning to leave, Mianna following close behind him. Once they were out of the view of the technician, he handed her the file. "Had to know, huh?"

Mianna took it cautiously. "Kondraki... Is this allowed...?"

"_Fuck _no," he said with a scoff. "But who's gonna tell? Not you, I hope. The tech cant say anything unless he saw me give it to you."

"Thank you," she said quietly, opening the file, but then she looked up. "Kondraki, I... I was starting to really... I mean... 2027, he..." She sighed, unable to look at him. "I thought we were... friends. But then he told me about Incident-2027-1, and... My father was there... He killed him. I just... wanted to know how."

Kondraki didn't ask her what she was thinking, he didn't get upset. He simply sighed and said, "That's rough."

Mianna nodded and looked back to the file.

_Dr. S. Skyroko expired following Incident-2027-1._

_Cause of death: Lethal injection._

_Dr. S. Skyroko deemed Class-E Unrecoverable following communication with SCP-2027 during Incident-2027-1 and terminated immediately. SCP-2027 had appeared to attack Dr. Skyroko but hesitated when Dr. Skyroko made contact. SCP-2027 was able to be subdued following this contact. Due to comments made while undergoing treatment for his injuries, Dr. Skyroko was deemed permanently compromised and terminated by means of lethal injection._

Mianna stared. After a moment, she realized she'd been holding her breath. "Oh, no," she breathed.

_4 were critically injured, later terminated. _

Mianna felt dizzy. She sat down against the wall. She heard Kondraki say, "Mianna?"

"Oh, no, no, 2027...Albtraum didn't kill him." She handed the file to Kondraki, who looked alarmed. "_They _killed him."

Kondraki read through the report with a grim frown. "Mianna..."

"And he was trying to tell me that, but I didn't listen," she said, clutching her head. "And now... I can't go back, and he probably thinks I hate him."

"Mianna," Kondraki said again, more firmly this time, shutting the file. "I think you're getting into some things you're better off not getting into. Forget about 2027. Forget about all of this. You would have had to find a way to decommission him even if you hadn't left, am I right?"

Mianna nodded, her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.

"Then just be happy you don't have to do it," he said sadly. "And forget about it. Get on with your life. Don't let this jeopardize your chance to see the outside again."

Mianna couldn't get up. "He was my friend," she said miserably.

Kondraki sighed and sat down next to her. "I know, but..." He shook his head. "I did warn you not to get attached, you know."

Mianna rubbed her eyes. "I know. But I'm not very good at listening."

Kondraki stood, pulling her up with him. "Well, get better at it," he said quietly. "Or you won't make it long here." He patted her shoulder, and turned back to the archives, taking the file with him.

* * *

Mianna was surprised to see in the morning that Kaezo had lasted through the night. He seemed to have relaxed, and conversed comfortably with 2066, but Mianna had to wonder if that wasn't some sort of plan on her part. She'd heard the meat of anything didn't taste as good if they were under a significant amount of stress before death.

"Did you have your coffee this morning?" Wallen sneered when Mianna set her things down. She glared.

"I don't drink coffee," she snapped. 2066 jumped up off the bed when she saw her, pushing Kaezo out of the way.

"_The cute one's back! Mianna, how much authority do you have? Can you fire that asshole?" _She pointed at Wallen.

"I wish," Mianna answered with a disappointed sigh. "You were, ah... You were right, by the way."

"_What about?" _

"Albtraum. He didn't kill my father."

2066 threw up her hands. _"Well, there ya go. No one ever believes me about this stuff. You look like you could use a joke. Kaezo, tell her that joke you told me last night."_

"_Okay," _he looked up at the window. "_Did you hear about the fire at the circus?" _2066 was already snickering.

"What about it?"

"_It was in tents." _2066 burst into full-blown, uncontrollable guffawing.

Mianna thought that was one of the worst jokes she'd ever heard, but she laughed nonetheless.

"_Cheer up," _2066 told her. "_Could be worse. You could be locked up in here."_

"Suddenly that doesn't sound so bad," Mianna said, running a hand through her hair. Wallen regarded her carefully. She looked back at him with an eyeroll. "I'm not going in there."

"_Yeah, not my cell, huh?" _2066 sighed. _"You should at least try to go apologize to the poor kid, even if they don't let you work with him again." _

Mianna looked down. "I could try, I suppose."

Wallen walked over and shut off the intercom, prompting Mianna to glare at him and stand up. "What was that for?!"

"Stop talking to it. That's what got you reassigned here. You can't make friends with your test subject. That's not a valid research method."

Mianna huffed at him. "Well, at least I can make friends."

The rest of the day went by in tense silence. Mianna didn't bother trying to turn the intercom back on, she figured it wasn't worth the drama, but spent the day glaring at the back of Wallen's head as he was presumably taking notes. Occasionally, she looked into the cell. 2066 and Kaezo seemed to be enjoying eachother's company, and thankfully, they seemed to be refraining from doing anything inappropriate for the moment.

When she wasn't consumed by festering irritation with Wallen, though, she was feeling guilty about all the things she'd said to Albtraum. She desperately hoped she'd get a chance to see him one last time, and apologize. The end of the day couldn't come fast enough.

When it did come, Mianna gathered her things and raced out the door. If she waited even a minute she might be too late, she thought, but she had know way of knowing when or if her window of time to see him even existed. She ran up the stairs, feeling her socks bunch in her shoes as she went. But she didn't care.

She took a breath to calm herself when she neared Albtraum's containment unit. The guards raised eyebrows at her, and she hurriedly asked, "Do you think they'll let me in there? I, uh... I forgot something."

"Worth a shot," one of them said with a shrug.

They stepped out of the way and Mianna swiped her keycard, her mind expecting to hear the single beep that signified a successful entry. She'd done it dozens of times. But the door remained silent, and the indicator light turned red. Her heart sank.

Not five seconds had passed, however, before the door handle moved and the door opened, and she was standing face-to-face with Dr. Kuloth.

"Ah, Doctor, I just..." She took a step back as he stepped out. "I... forgot something and I thought..."

He took her by the arm, gripping her elbow in a way that looked gentle, but was hard enough to cause pain. He led her back down the hall a ways. "Dr. Skyroko, anything you left on the deck will be left in lost and found." When they were out of earshot of the guards, he leaned in close to her face, fury in his eyes despite a friendly expression. "Stay away from 2027, Dr. Skyroko. If you attempt to make contact with him again I promise it will not end well for you."

Mianna blinked at him in terror a few times before he released her and calmly walked back to the cell.

She stood staring dumbfounded at the guards for a moment, then tugged at her socks and hurriedly walked back up to her room, guilt weighing more heavily than ever in the pit of her stomach as she climbed the stairs and crossed over the bridge.

_This is all my fault. If I hadn't... If I had kept my mouth shut and not befriended him in the first place..._

She shook her head. Somehow, she couldn't make herself regret that part of it, but she regretted jumping to conclusions and leaving him. She felt lost, unsure of what to believe now. The Foundation had once seemed in her mind to be an entity of good in the world, but the more she learned and the deeper she went she had nothing but bitterness in her heart for the organization. She breathed shakily as she fumbled with her doorknob and entered her apartment, shutting the door being her and kicking her shoes off.

_I only wish I could have told him I was sorry._

What would they do now, she wondered? Would Dr. Kuloth find a way to kill him? He would die never knowing that she'd forgiven him, that there was never really anything to forgive, that she never really wanted this and that the time she'd spent being his friend was the only time in the facility when she'd felt truly, deeply happy. She doubted such a feeling would come again, at least as long as she was here.

She removed her lab coat, but didn't change clothes, curling up under her covers and appreciating the relief the cool pillow brought to her aching head. She should go down and get something to eat, she thought, her friends would be wondering where she was, but she was so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that she slipped into sleep before she could even reach over to shut off her lamp.


	7. 07 BREACH

**.07 BREACH**

Mianna's nightmares were filled with sirens and alarms.

Or maybe it wasn't a nightmare.

She wasn't sure what had woken her up and groggily swung her legs over the side of the bed. She looked over to check the time, but the clock was just continually flashing _12:00. _

_That's odd, _she thought, glancing over to the window. It was still dark out.

She stood to walk to the bathroom, rubbing her neck. She flipped the lightswitch, and the light flickered. Now she was concerned.

She turned the faucet, and the water came out in spurts. She shut it off, backed out of the bathroom, and slipped her shoes on, opening the door to step outside.

As soon as she did, she heard the scream of the breach siren in the distance and panic weakened her knees. _Oh, no. _Why hadn't the alarm near her apartment gone off? She saw some researchers hurrying for the stairs and she ran after them. Her socks were bunching in her shoes again, she noted. What a thing to notice in a time like this.

"_Catastro...power failu...ecting grids... sectors 6, 7, 9, 12..." _A calm, but tense male voice was calling out over the loudspeakers, cutting out in between words. "_Multiple containment breaches, I repe... tiple containment breaches. All A and B Class researchers repo...ediately to the underground bunker. Mobile task forces...stand by."_

Mianna thought over the Sectors mentioned as she shoved her way along the crowd of panicked, screaming people down the stairs. _Sector 6. That's this one. _Her eyes widened. _And sector 9 is..._

Sector 9 only housed one SCP, and it was by far the most dangerous of them contained in this facility.

_682._

Mianna rushed down the stairs, hoping, praying, that she'd see Cullyn among the evacuees. Or Ismaire. Guards ushered everyone in to the dark basement bunker, and Mianna desperately looked around the crowd for someone she recognized.

She saw him then, standing against the back wall. "Dr. Kondraki!"

His eyes went wide and he rushed over and hugged her. "You scared the shit out of me, kid. Where were you last night?"

"I just... I didn't feel like coming down to dinner." Kondraki looked worried. "I'm okay," she assured him. "Where's Cullyn?"

"I don't know," he said, shoulders slumping. "I was heading over that way to start my shift. They said when the power went down they were trying to drain the acid because one of the gates was failing, but it opened when they got it about halfway down. It flooded the lower deck and killed most of the guards down there. They said most of them managed to get out, but 682 is starting to break through its gate now that the electromagnetic barrier is failing."

"Aren't there backup generators?" Mianna asked, feeling more and more panicked the more she learned.

"Yeah, but half of them failed to fire. We don't know why. There's a lot of strain on the ones that are still working." He anxiously ran a hand through his messy hair. "682 is starting to heal. They estimate it'll be another 12 hours, and then it'll be at full strength."

Kondraki looked over at the people starting to filter in from the other side of the bunker. They were bloodied and battered, some of them in pieces. There were hardly enough living guards to carry the bodies. Mianna found herself moving that direction, and Kondraki caught her sleeve, trying to stop her, but she pulled away.

"What's going on?" She heard one of the head guards say.

"Acid burn victims from Sector 9 incoming, sir. And a few bodies were found in sector 7 and here in sector 6."

They were laying them out against the wall, Mianna watching in revulsion and disgust, but also relief, when she didn't see Cullyn or Ismaire. At least, not that she could tell. Some of the bodies were so marred and corroded from acid, with teeth and bones baring and empty eye sockets, no skin to speak of save for scraps of the heavy armor that were left, it was impossible to identify anyone in such a state. Mianna tried not to look to long at them. Most were guards, but she saw a few researchers among the dead. One of them she realized she recognized.

"He was on the same shift as me," Mianna said incredulously to Kondraki as she looked down at Wallen's body. There were no obvious wounds and she couldn't readily tell what had killed him. She frowned. She hadn't particularly liked him, but she didn't exactly want him dead, either. "He must have been going in early. What time is it, anyhow?"

Kondraki checked his watch. "0545 hours," he said.

"Or he was going in on time..." Her eyes widened. "I was supposed to be working fifteen minutes ago. My alarm... The power outage must have kept my alarm from going off."

Kondraki put an arm around her. "And I'm really, really glad that it did." He looked up as the guards were hauling in a rather unruly injured patient.

"For _fuck's _sake, put me the _fuck _down, I just wrenched my fucking knee, I can still fight!" Mianna looked over and was immensely relieved to see Ismaire, evidently well enough to still be screaming at the guards who were carrying her in.

Mianna rushed over, and Ismaire calmed to grumbling on seeing her. "What happened?"

She noticed that one of the guards who'd been carrying Ismaire was none other than Brunhart Nadmocnost. "The upper bridge collapsed when 682 started ramming the gate, and one of the supports hit her in the leg."

Kondraki had stepped over to look her over. Mianna continued watching mutilated bodies be hauled in, growing more anxious with each one. "Captain..." She remembered that was what Cullyn had taken to calling him. "Have you seen my brother?"

Brunhart appeared to be preparing to ask who her brother was when he glanced at her nametag. His expression was hard to read. "Cullyn was on the second deck, out of the way of the acid. He went down to assist in repairing the generators in sector 9."

So he was safe, for the moment. Mianna's shoulders relaxed slightly. "I should go help them too," she said, and Kondraki looked startled.

"Mia, are you crazy?" He allowed one of the medical workers to then see to Ismaire's knee.

Brunhart sighed. "Dangerous as it is, they need as many helping hands as they can get down there."

Mianna turned back to face Kondraki. "See? I need to go help."

He groaned. "At least let me go with you." He stepped over to the piles of corpses and retrieved a gun from one of them, then gathered a few magazines from the belts of others. He shoved them in his pockets, and slung the rifle over his shoulder. "Alright, all set."

"Be fucking careful," Ismaire snapped at them, shouting more expletives as the med staff tended her leg.

"We will," Mianna promised, and stepped past Brunhart out into the chaos of the hallway. Everyone was going in, and they were going out. Against the tide. It felt wrong.

"I can't believe this is happening," Mianna finally said, overwhelmed. "I've never been in a breach so catastrophic."

"I don't know that there's been one in recent years," Kondraki said, stepping ahead of her and checking around the corners as they descended the stairs. Personnel thinned out until the halls were empty but for them.

"Did you hear which SCPs managed to get out?"

"The intercom was choppy. I just heard 096 and 173. I'm sure there are more... 682 isn't technically a breach yet, but if we can get the generators back up and get the electromagnetic gate powered back up, it might not get out."

Mianna frowned deeply. Of all the SCPs she never wanted to encounter, 096 and 173 were high on the list. Thinking about it, she realized 173 must have been what killed Wallen. It visciously attacked anyone who broke visual contact with it. It must have broken his neck.

"Stay behind me," Kondraki instructed, when he noticed she was getting ahead of him. "I'm the one with the gun."

"How far down are the generators?" Mianna asked, stepping behind him.

"A fuckton of floors down, that's all I know. They're under the D-Class barracks." He poked his head out around another corner and slowly stepped out, Mianna close in tow. The hallways were mostly empty, and seemed to serve no purpose other than forming a labyrinth. The lights flickered. Mianna tried not to feel afraid.

Mianna lowered her voice as Kondraki crept up on a corner cautiously, as though he'd heard something. "Dr. Kondraki, is..." He held up a hand to silence her. She waited behind him, holding her breath, and he peeked out behind the corner, suddenly yelping and discharging several rounds from his rifle. Mianna jumped and cried out at the suddenness of the sound. "The _fuck!" _Kondraki swore, jamming another magazine into the rifle. He didn't seem to immediately be planning on shooting again, however, and Mianna leaned out from behind the corner to see what he'd shot at.

She nearly fell to her knees.

"Albtraum!" Kondraki watched in confusion as Mianna left the cover of the corner and rushed over to him. She was smiling, but then suddenly remembered the three bullet holes through his chest and faltered. "A-are you alright? Oh, no, we..."

She didn't think she'd ever seen him happier, gunshot wounds and all. "Mianna, if a few bullets could stop me, do you think I'd still be here?" Indeed, the blood that had seeped from the wounds already seemed to be fading as he healed.

She threw her arms around his neck. It was strange to finally be able to touch him, to not hear his voice through the filter of the intercom. "I'm so sorry for what I said," she mumbled breathlessly into his shoulder. "I didn't... I should have listened to you."

He hugged her back. "I'm only glad you're alright. I thought I'd never see you again."

"Oh, Albtraum," she pulled away from him after a moment, turning back to Kondraki. "This is Dr. Kondraki. Kondraki, this is Albtraum. Er... SCP-2027."

"Charmed," Kondraki grunted. He still hadn't lowered his weapon.

"How did you get out?" Mianna asked.

"Apparently after so many power surges, the locks on the door can get fried and the codes reset. I don't think they ever counted on something like this happening."

Kondraki's eyes went wide. "For SCPs that are smart enough to know how to work the door, that's not good."

"How many of those have we got here?" Mianna asked, looking concerned.

"Not many, but..." Kondraki huffed and looked to Albtraum. "You planning on helpin' us at all?"

"Yeah, of course," Albtraum replied with a fair degree of surprise. "I promised I would, didn't I?" He looked to Mianna.

She groaned and rubbed her neck. "I was really hoping you weren't going to have to follow up on that promise, but... I'm glad you made it." She frowned, wondering what would happen to him when they got the breach under control. _If _they got the breach under control. "We're going down to help them try to get the generators back up and running until they can repair the grid."

"They've likely already abandoned the containment unit in Sector 9," Kondraki informed her. "It's too dangerous and we don't have the manpower to stop it at the moment."

"What's in Sector 9?" Albtraum asked, following Kondraki as he continued down the hall.

"682," Kondraki replied, still seeming wary of him, still clutching tight to the gun. "If it gets out, well... Everyone's fucked. And not just us, _everyone_."

"So let's get the power back on." The chaos and dread of the breach had lessened moderately for Mianna, and she walked along behind Albtraum, glad for his company, though Kondraki kept glancing back at him like he expected to find a knife in his back.

"Why don't _you _walk in front," Kondraki said pointedly. "Since you're the fucking indestructible one."

Albtraum hesitantly did so, frowning as Kondraki kept the gun pointed at his back.

It was a long way down to the basement levels where the generators were kept. Mianna remembered an SCP she'd learned about in her training, SCP-087. It was an endless staircase. They had never reached the bottom of it in research attempts. Some researchers has been missing inside of it for over 30 years. She started to wonder if they'd ever reach the bottom of these stairs.

She watched Albtraum moving ahead of them. She couldn't quite get over how surreal it was to watch him moving freely, out of his cell, no longer a wall of concrete between them. He kept glancing back at her, looking nervous.

"Would you watch where you're going?" Kondraki snapped. "You lovebirds can go back to staring at eachother all you want when there's not an undetermined amount of highly dangerous and possibly sentient creatures out for our blood."

Finally, the staircase opened up into a long, straight hallway. It was dark, and they couldn't see very far, but Kondraki looked relieved.

"It should be a straight shot to Sector 9, now." His pace quickened, and he kept glancing behind them, as though he feared he was being watched.

They had been moving down the single hallway for such a long time that Mianna hadn't even bothered to look back after a while. They started passing the bodies of guards after a while, and she tried to get a good enough look at them to see what had killed them. In almost all of them, they appeared to have shot themselves with their own rifles. She felt her heart sink.

"Better to die than be killed, huh?" Kondraki said grimly as they continued on.

Mianna's legs were starting to ache as they ran and she wondered how much further they'd have to go. She heard distant, rumbling thuds, and thought she was imagining it at first until she realized they were under Sector 9, and the sounds were 682 ramming against the gate of its containment chamber.

"Aww, somebody's not happy," Kondraki said with a wry smirk. "Maybe we need to have us a little _rodeo." _There were signs pointing around a corner to the generators, and lulled into a false sense of security by how long they'd been going straight, Kondraki stepped out and turned the corner without so much as a hesitation.

"_BOO!" _A voice sounded, and Mianna saw Kondraki scramble back around the corner, loudly swearing, fumbling with his gun to try to get it to a position he could shoot it. Albtraum raised an eyebrow at him, and Kondraki looked back around the corner then, his panic dissipating, replaced with distinct annoyance.

"_You!" _he cried accusingly.

"Yes, hello Gregory." 2066 stepped out from around the corner, looking bored. There was blood all over her jumper, and some on her face, and Mianna doubted it was hers. By some miracle, the D-Class, Kaezo, was still with her.

"Gregory?" Albtraum looked amused.

"_Do not _call me by my first name," Kondraki said warningly, mostly to 2066.

She ignored him. "Y'all make a lot of noise. I've been a ways in front of you this whole time." She grinned at Albtraum. "So you got out too then?" She glanced at Mianna, then said to him, "Good catch, by the way. Nice tits."

Mianna remembered a time in her life when she would have been horrendously embarrassed by that, but for the moment all she could do was give an exasperated sigh. Albtraum was glaring daggers at 2066.

She decided to try to change the subject. "Kondraki, how do you know 2066?"

He started to answer, "It's not-" but 2066 cut him off.

"Oh he never told you?" She laughed, looking pleased with herself. "Greg here used to spend a lot of time conducting _research _in my cell-"

"_You _used some kind of mind control powers to lure me in there, you devil woman!"

"I did no such thing," she scoffed, looking offended. "I mean, I _am _pretty cute, though... Who could blame you?"

"That's enough," Mianna said, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Forget I asked."

"And it's Riley," 2066 corrected her. "The gates are down, I'm out and about, we're all friends here, so let's drop the numbers."

Kondraki finally looked behind her at Kaezo, who looked back at him with a glare. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Jealous of my new boyfriend, Greg?" the self-denominated Riley purred, taking Kaezo by the arm. "Don't be. You never had a chance, anyway."

"Well, I'm glad we all know eachother now, but can we get to the generator room? We can't exactly afford the luxury of dilly-dallying at this point," Mianna informed them with a frown.

Riley rolled her eyes. "Fine." She motioned for Albtraum to keep going. "Lead the way, Coppercock."

Albtraum glared at her, stalking to yet another set of stairs. Thankfully, this one was leading up. Kondraki followed along behind Albtraum and Riley, muttering something about "stupid bitch". Riley looked back glaring, evidently having heard him, but said nothing else.

"So, she's really cute, hmm?" she muttered to Albtraum, presumably low enough that Mianna wouldn't hear, but she did. "Can I eat her?"

"Fuck off, Riley," Albtraum grumbled, but she could barely hear him.

She laughed at him. "That's not how I meant."

"_You fuck right off," _he snapped, louder, turning on her suddenly. Mianna watched them carefully, concerned.

"Excuse me! SCPs? Can we keep moving?" Kondraki yelled at them. He checked his watch. "We've only got another 10 hours, at the absolute most, before 682 is too strong to reasonably contain again. Probably a lot less than that."

Albtraum groaned and turned back up the stairs, but Riley looked back with a snarl. "Whatever, old man."

"Old?! I'm thirty-seven!"

"We should probably get going," Kaezo pointed out helpfully.

Riley rolled her eyes and continued climbing the stairs. Her and Albtraum stopped cautiously at the top.

"What is it?" Mianna asked, stopping on the step next to Kondraki.

"Whitecoats might not wanna see us roaming freely around, if you know what I mean," Riley pointed out, taking a few steps down.

Kondraki slung his gun over his back. "I'll go in and let them know." Mianna followed him up the steps and they entered the generator room, where guards and researchers alike were working on the generators, which were in pieces all over the room. She craned her neck to try to see Cullyn. Some of the researchers looked up attentively when they saw Kondraki enter.

He cleared his throat. "Listen up, I've got SCP friendlies here, I don't want anyone so much as looking at them with hostile intent, do I make myself clear?" He was met with nods, and a few disjointed "Yes, sir"s. He turned to a few of the researchers as the rest of them got back to work. "What's the situation?"

"Most of the generators have been... demagnetized, sir." One young researcher nervously looked up as Riley and Albtraum stepped into the room.

Kondraki swore. "Is there any way to get them back up?"

Cullyn approached from the back of the room, then. "I don't think so. It looks... It looks like it was done intentionally." His eyes went wide as he noticed his sister. "Mia- What are you doing down here?"

"I came to help," she explained. Albtraum was hovering behind her as though he was unsure of what to do, and Cullyn tensed visibly on seeing him. "Albtraum, this is my brother. Cullyn, this is SCP-2027. He's helping us."

"Better be," Cullyn said with a threatening undertone.

"You said this was done intentionally?" Mianna asked then with growing alarm.

"Yeah. I mean-" Cullyn looked back to the layout of generators in the dark room. "It's as if they've been strategically affected so that the most strain is being put on the remaining generators, which are the only ones with a failsafe component that doesn't allow them to be demagnetized."

"So there's no hope of getting the power back up," Kondraki said, his face falling. He looked uncharacteristically hopeless.

Mianna found herself looking at Albtraum, who was staring continuously at some of the researchers with an odd expression. She thought back to the things he'd said about wanting to cause a breach, about wanting to kill some of them. She tried to nudge him with her shoulder to subtly break his focus. He let out a breath and looked over at Kondraki. "So you'll have to abandon the sector, then, is that it?"

"Until the grid can be repaired. That could take days," Cullyn informed him. "And if 682 makes its way over to the grid, well..."

"What methods do you have to get it back into containment?" Albtraum asked suddenly.

Cullyn looked confused. "Well, we have restraint cannons with harpoons to hold it down, but it'll need to be weakened first, and all our heavy weaponry was kept on the bottom floor. The acid corrosion has probably rendered it unusable." He sighed. "We'll have to wait for reinforcements from another facility... And that could take another few days."

"What if I weaken it?"

Cullyn looked surprised, but it was Mianna who spoke. "You can do that?"

"You'll need to get me to SCP-2023," Albtraum added.

"It's in Sector 11," Kondraki said, and Mianna was a bit surprised he knew. "The power's still on there... You'll need a keycard."

"Do I have clearance?" Mianna asked.

Kondraki nodded. "It's Level 3. But... Mianna..."

"You get everyone back to the bunkers," she said to him. "I'll go with Albtraum."

Cullyn frowned. "Are you sure?"

Albtraum answered before Mianna could. "Nothing will hurt her, I'll see to that."

"I'll find a way to end you if you don't," Cullyn snarled, turning to go with Kondraki and Riley, who were leading the rest of the team away.

"Well, be careful," Riley instructed them. "Tell me all the juicy details about your romantic adventure when you get back! Al, if you're gonna screw her, don't do it on this floor, it's disgusting."

"I distinctly remember telling you to fuck off, Riley," he warned.

"Oh, right, I forgot. You have some irrational fear of intercourse." She rolled her eyes and made vague hand gestures.

Kaezo let out a sudden laugh. "Seriously?"

"Let's _go!" _Cullyn snapped, already halfway down the stairs.


	8. 08 DON'T LOOK

**.08 DON'T LOOK**

Albtraum huffed as they went, glaring in the direction he saw Riley go. "Just because I don't try to fuck anything with legs does _not _mean-"

"I know, it's alright. Just ignore her." Mianna held back laughter, then tried to reign herself in and be serious. "We need to go back up top to get to Sector 11." There were stairs at the back of the room, and she took his hand and lead him that way. "Why do you need 2023?"

"I can use it as a weapon," he replied simply. They climbed the stairs another few levels and the thudding from 682's chamber was starting to rattle the floor. Mianna tried her best to ignore it, holding tighter to Albtraum's hand. When they reached the top of the stairs, he bent over, wheezing. "I'm out of shape," he gasped. "Should have been doing laps in my cell and up those damn stairs."

Mianna smiled, noting she wasn't much better off. "Well, I had access to a full gym and never used it," she told him. They must have been near the containment chamber, she noted, because the lights, although flickering, were brighter, and the walls set with the familiar white paneling that was always present in the halls of containment chambers.

They both jumped as a voice sounded over the loudspeakers again. "_Power grid sector 10... partial failure," _the voice called.

"Another power failure," Mianna mumbled. "Let's hope the gates are still open."

They kept going, closer and closer to 682's chamber, until Mianna could hear it roaring. The sound was deeply unsettling, so loud and low-pitched she could feel it rattling her ribcage.

The booming of its roar, only slightly muffled by the gate, combined with the force of its ramming, was starting to make cracks in the walls and floor, Mianna noted. "We don't have much time," she informed Albtraum. Then, she skidded to a halt. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" Albtraum stopped behind her.

She looked up. The acid had flooded the entire hall. There was no end in sight. It had to be at least six inches deep in some places where the floor had sunken in from corrosion. "We can't go any further..."

"Of course we can." Mianna didn't have time to protest before Albtraum scooped her up and charged headlong into the acid-flooded hallway, making his steps quick but careful, so as to avoid splashing any of it anywhere.

"Albtraum..." She had no idea how to respond to this chosen course of action, but gritted her teeth as she realized his boots wouldn't hold against the acid for long. He made it quite a ways before she saw even a twinge of pain in his expression, but he was starting to breathe more heavily. "I don't think it's much further," she quickly encouraged as heavier breathing was turning into pained grunts.

After what seemed an eternity, they reached a staircase out of the pool of acid. Mianna continually demanded that Albtraum put her down, but he climbed all the way to the top of the stairs, to the doorway leading to Sector 10, before gently setting her down and collapsing, groaning, next to the door.

Mianna glanced down at his feet, feeling mildly ill. The soles of his boots were mostly gone, and the boot itself seemed to have melted onto what was left of the skin of his feet. She could see the tips of the bones in his toes, and on his left leg, where he'd stepped forward a little too quickly and splashed some of the acid on his shin, his tibia was exposed through acid-corroded flesh.

Shaking, she just looked at him, unsure of what to do. "Do you need me to-"

"No," he grunted, wincing as he leaned down and peeled off the destroyed remnants of his boots. "No. I've got it." The pain in his expression gradually lessened, and she watched muscle and skin regenerate over the damaged areas.

"That was stupid," she breathed, glad to see the wounds fully healed after a few minutes. He was barefoot now, but he didn't seem to care.

"It worked, though." He stood and turned to the door. "Got your card?"

She nodded, withdrawing it from her pocket and swiping it on the door. The lights flickered as she did, and she door remained closed. When the power appeared to come back on, she swiped again, and the door gave a single beep and opened.

The next hallway was cold, and darker than the others. Mianna took Albtraum's hand again, suddenly feeling nervous. "Stay right here," she said, pulling him close as they walked.

He sighed shakily. "Believe me, I wasn't planning on going anywhere else."

* * *

Sector 10 was not a straight path like the others had been. It wound around and twisted and turned, and they found themselves back where they'd started on more than one occasion. Mianna was frustrated and anxious.

"We have to get there," she whimpered after the third time they'd seen the sector entrance, close to tears. It was dark and cold and she was shivering. "We've wasted so much time already, _damn it, _Albtraum, what if we don't get there in time..."

"I don't know," he answered quietly. "But we're going to try, in any case."

Mianna shook her head. She didn't want to think about it, but she found herself asking anyway. "What will we do if we can't?"

"We'll run," he said, very seriously. "You and I will get out of here... And we'll run."

"What about the others?"

"We'll save them too if we can."

Mianna relaxed only just slightly and took a deep breath, closing her eyes. "Alright. Let's try again." She started with Albtraum down the last path they'd taken. She turned corners she thought – she hoped – were unfamiliar. She still had the awful, sickening feeling that she was moving in a circle.

Then, a wave of relief sent her stumbling forward when she finally encountered a sign pointing her onwards that read _To Sector 11. _She tugged Albtraum along, holding to his hand like it was her last anchor to salvation, and hurriedly started down the next hallway.

She yelped when Albtraum abruptly pulled her back. "Mianna, wait," he whispered.

She looked to him questioningly, then back the direction she'd been going. It was so dark. What little light was emitted from the dim lamps on the ceiling reflected in Albtraum's eyes. They seemed to almost glow.

Then, she heard a young man's voice say, hurried and panicked, "No, no, no, I'm sorry, I... _No, get away from me..." _

What followed that was the most horrific sound Mianna had ever heard. A low, miserable wail that sounded like the voice of a man, but the sound was so pained and so animal that it couldn't have possibly come from a human. The sound rose in volume and pitch until it was a shriek, and she heard the young man scream before a sharp _crunch _sounded and the shrieking stopped.

Mianna didn't dare breathe, and absently realized she was clinging to Albtraum so tightly the bunch of his jumper she clenched in her fist had torn just slightly. She heard crunching and shredding noises for a few moments, sounding horribly like something devouring something, bones and all. A few more minutes passed, and all the noises ceased.

She was shaking so hard she could barely take in a breath as she stood. "We have to keep going," she whispered to Albtraum, so quiet she could barely hear herself.

He nodded, and they slowly moved forward. Suddenly, a light flickered on, and Mianna gasped, hearing herself start to sob, and she pushed Albtraum back. "Turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around!" she cried, nearly collapsing, she was so afraid.

"Mianna, what..."

"Don't look don't look don't look," she gasped. "It's SCP-096."

Albtraum turned away, arms wrapped around her shoulders as she buried her face in his chest. "What does it do?"

Mianna was crying. She was too loud, she knew, it was going to hear her and come over, but she just couldn't stop. "It d-doesn't do a-anything until you l-look at it's face," she sobbed. "Th-then it just... rips you apart and...Oh, god. They haven't found any way to stop it, either." She was going to be sick.

She could hear his heart hammering, faster than hers, even. "O-okay," he stammered. "Did you look at its face?"

"No, it was turned around." She held tighter still.

"So we just keep moving," he told her quietly. "Just look down, we'll get to the door, you'll swipe your card, and we'll get out. Come on. Let's go. I'll be right behind you."

Mianna looked down at the floor as hard as she could. Each step forward, she felt more like she would throw up. She caught a brief glimpse of the thing, turned away from them, as they passed it. Its skin was dead-white, emaciated, bones showing through, its arms so long they dragged the ground, fingers like some grossly-proportioned child's drawing.

There were pools of blood everywhere, but no sign of the young man who's voice they heard.

_SCP-096 will proceed to kill and [DATA EXPUNGED] the person who viewed its face. In 100% of cases it leaves no trace but blood._

That report was one case, Mianna thought, where "data expunged" may as well not be there. She heard herself whimper again.

"Shh," she heard Albtraum behind her. He gripped her hands. "Almost to the door."

She heard 096 wheezing. And the sound didn't seem to be getting farther away. "Oh no, no, no, no, it's _following _us, Albtraum, no-"

"It's fine," he assured her, though he was starting to sound panicked himself. "Here." They stopped in front of the door, and Mianna reached into her pocket.

"Oh, _no_." She felt only the cotton of her lab coat inside her pocket. "No. Oh, _shit._ Albtraum, my keycard is gone. I dropped it somewhere..." She started to cry again.

"It's okay," he told her again, but his voice was breaking with fear. She heard 096 shifting from foot to foot behind him, still breathing heavily. "Is there another way to open the door?"

"My number," she said, feeling a tiny rush of relief. "I remember the number. I can put it in on the keypad."

"Why don't you do that, then," he said hoarsely. "No rush. Take your time."

Hopeful, Mianna started punching the number in. _1-1-0-1-6-3-7-0- _The light flickered, and the backlights on the buttons went out. _Shit. _She started over. The power flickered again.

Why did the number have to be so long?

She tried several more times, the power cutting her short every time. She could actually hear Albtraum's rapid heartbeat over her own now. "Mianna," he said tensely. "Any day now."

"I'm trying!" She cried. "The power keeps-"

"Calm down," he mumbled. "Focus." 096 must have been breathing down his neck, it sounded so close.

Mianna took a breath.

_1-1-0-1-6-3-7-0-6-8-0._

The door beeped once, and opened.

"Mianna? It's following us through." Mianna didn't have time to respond before Albtraum shoved her forward. She fell to the ground, and scrambled back up to turn around just in time to see Albtraum turn, facing 096 head-on, shoving it back, and then hurriedly slamming his fist down on the door button on the other side. The door instantly slid shut.

Ten seconds passed before Mianna let out a long, slow, relieved breath.

And then 096 started to wail on the other side.

"You _looked _at it!" she screamed, and looking terrified, he turned around. She rushed forward and grabbed his arm, pulling him along as she raced down the hallway to the next gate, which opened automatically. "That gate won't last another ten minutes!" She slammed the lock button behind her, and did the same for all the other gates they passed through.

"Mianna, it can't hurt me," he started to say.

"It's going to _eat _you and I'd rather not find out if you can get out of that one!" She could hear it shrieking distantly. They reached the Sector 11 gate, and Mianna punched in her number once again. The gate opened, and they rushed through it. The hallway on the other side was well-lit. The power was still up in this section. She shut the first gate, then slammed her hand onto a large blue button on the panel that read _Reinforced Gate. Activate in case of CB. _She heard the gate whir and slam down on the other side.

Now, she did collapse. She couldn't say anything, she had no idea what to say. She clung to Albtraum and sobbed uncontrollably. Finally, she found a word. _"Fuck," _she spat.

"We're okay," Albtraum said shakily. "We're okay."

The loudspeakers, on this side, were fully up and running, an automated message already being played to replace the announcer. _"Multiple breaches of containment. All A and B-Class research personnel report to bunkers immediately."_

Mianna stood and carefully headed over to look at the directory. She looked over the map, and found herself picking out the only section of green on it. 2023. She wiped at her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"It's back this way," she informed Albtraum, who was still looking at the door with concern. After a moment, he stood and followed her.

Mianna stepped along hall, glancing at the doors they passed. "So many Keter classes. I'm glad the power's up in this sector." Albtraum nodded agreement. The reached the door of 2023's containment unit, and Mianna typed in her number, hoping it would work. The door opened. They stepped inside. Mianna noted the sign on the door as they stepped in, with symbols denoting that protective gear must be used before making contact with the SCP.

There was no gate between the observation deck and the containment chamber, Mianna noted, only a short set of stairs leading down into a pool of something black that seemed to suck the light in around it. Albtraum stepped down the stairs without hesitation and reached his arm into it, up to his elbow. Whatever the stuff was, it formed to his arm up to the shoulder. He pulled back and stepped back up the stairs.

The piece of SCP-2023 Albtraum had taken was formed into a wide blade that flared off at his elbow, attached along his forearm, and extended far past his fingertips. He moved his arm a bit to get a feel for it, and Mianna had to take a moment to marvel at the strange substance.

"It's an omniform," She noted. "It can conform to any shape and hold like that indefinitely, can it?"

He nodded. "Let's see if it can't get a few chunks off that overgrown lizard."

They started back towards the gate, Mianna still staring at Albtraum and the blade on his arm. "Does it... Does it do that with everyone?"

Albtraum shook his head. "Just me. Though, I've heard them say it would sometimes spontaneously conform to random shapes. It appears to have a moderate amount of sentience, I think."

Fascinated, Mianna nodded, looking at it carefully. They approached the main gate again, but Mianna slowed, looking to Albtraum.

"096 is still out there," she told him. When she stopped, she heard a few dull thuds and muffled wails. "It's right... Right there."

"_Gate failure imminent," _a calm, computerized female voice informed them over the loudspeakers.

Mianna gasped. "It's going to break through."

_At this point, no known material or method can impede SCP-096's progress. _

Albtraum seemed to weigh his options, then the gate bulged out where 096 rammed it, and he motioned for Mianna to get back. "I'm gonna try-"

The gate was broken through at that moment and Mianna instinctively looked at the floor and ran. She didn't know what it would do. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. She crouched in the corner, feeling unbelievably calm for a brief moment, then promptly doubled over, holding the wall, and vomited. Her hands shook and she screwed her eyes shut. _This is it, _she thought, _it's over._

She heard the _crunch _of bones breaking and the wailing faltered, then ceased. There was a dull thud that sounded like a foot connecting with a torso, followed by a rush of forcibly expelled breath, then more crunches and blood splats against the cold, hard floors.

She waited, shaking, feeling oddly detached. This wasn't real. None of this could be-

Finally, the sounds stopped, and she heard footsteps rushing towards her. Cautiously, she glanced up. It was Albtraum. She gave a heavy sigh of relief.

"That should slow it down," he said, pulling her to her feet. "You alright?" His voice shook. She nodded. He was covered in blood, but none of it seemed to have stayed on the blade attached to his arm.

Mianna turned to look back toward the gate. 096 was in pieces.

Albtraum had kicked the pieces of the severed arms, legs and torso as far away from eachother as he could get them in the gateway bay – the head was against the wall, facing toward it. Mianna realized something and jumped.

"It's still _moving!" _

"Yeah, I... think it's going to start trying to put itself back together." The hand of one of the arms gripped the floor and dragged itself along, but the movements it made were all slow and languid, not the movements of a thing readying for another attack. "We should get out of here before it manages to do that."

Mianna nodded, quickly looking away. "How did you know you could stop it?"

"I didn't. But I had to do something."

"You're stupid," Mianna noted incredulously.

"You keep saying that, but I'm the one who keeps getting us out," he defended. They climbed through the hole in the gate.

Mianna looked at him seriously. "Maybe they'll let you stay out after this," she wondered aloud, "to help with this sort of thing."

Albtraum suddenly took on a sneer. "Oh yes, that's _exactly _what I want to do. Help the whitecoats? Exist as their security system?" He scoffed, stomping along next to her, but his anger didn't seem to be directed at her. "I won't help them."

Mianna stepped over to take his hand, the one not covered by 2023. "Albtraum..."

He sighed. "SCP stands for 'Secure, Contain, Protect' but that's not all they do here. If it was, I wouldn't be Keter class, and this breach likely wouldn't be happening. Your brother said it looked like the generator situation was intentional."

"I know," she agreed. "They killed my father, too. But he tried to help you. And what about me?"

"You and your father are different. Not like any researchers I've ever met." Albtraum didn't look at her.

"What about Dr. Kondraki?"

"I keep forgetting he's a researcher, to be honest."

Mianna laughed nervously. "Me too." She then frowned as they continued on. "Albtraum... What are we going to do, when all this is over?"

He bit his lip and quickened his pace. Mianna had to rush to keep up, he had such a long stride.

"Let's not worry about that for now. We've got work to do."


	9. 09 CONTAIN

**.09 CONTAIN**

By the time they entered the gate to Sector 9, enough chunks of concrete had collapsed from the ceiling that there was a clear path of stepping-stones through the pools of acid. Mianna hopped across them cautiously, Albtraum bounding across less cautiously, peering up at the ceiling occasionally.

They rounded the corner to the observation bay. The gate was down. 682 lazily stepped around the bay, and Mianna found her jaw dropping involuntarily as she stared up at it.

It was the most massive living thing she'd ever seen. At her university, there had been a chamber with a plasticized blue whale – she remembered being impressed by that, but it was only a hundred feet long. 682 was nearly ten times that size. Its head looked roughly like that of a crocodile, but was covered by a thick, heavy mane that looked perpetually dirty. Its skin was rough, grayish, and scaly, but it was still riddled with gaping wounds from the acid exposure.

Mianna faintly heard human voices over the low growls emitted by 682. She finally tore her gaze from it and looked over at the opposite end of the bay – there she saw guards in acid-resistant suits wading through to the harpoon cannons. The cables were massive, a foot and a half in diameter. The harpoons that topped them were massive, and their shape vaguely resembled an anchor.

She saw the guards checking the cannons over, motioning to eachother. 682 still seemed to be too much in a daze to notice them. Chunks of the ceiling crumbled and fell on top of it, but it shook them off as though it were pieces of dirt falling onto its back. Its tail flicked aggressively from side to side, creating small sonic booms in the air. The size of the thing was unbelievable.

The guards dodged around the chunks of concrete – some of them as large as cars – and noted that sunlight was beginning to shine down from where the ceiling fell away, collapsing now that its supports were gone.

_The entire sector could come down, _Mianna realized.

Evidently, around the same time Albtraum had. "Mianna, go back to the bunker in Sector 6. I'll work with the guards here to take care of this."

She grabbed his arm as he started to move forward. "Albtraum, no. I'm not going anywhere until I know 682 is secured and you're safe."

He motioned her to the corridor to Sector 8. "Then at least wait where you'll be moderately safer if this place does collapse."

Mianna hesitantly moved that direction and one of the men in the acid suits removed his headpiece, revealing himself to be Kondraki. "Nice of you to show up to the party," he said with a grin. "Let's contain this motherfucker."

No sooner had Kondraki spoken than 682 let out a long, low bellow, shaking the floor with the force of a minor earthquake. Mianna ducked into the corridor and watched carefully as it turned its massive head and peered down at Albtraum and Kondraki with gray, animal eyes.

"_**It's always you," **_a surprisingly calm voice emanated from the thing's slightly open mouth. The voice sounded detached, as though it wasn't really coming from 682. _**"You, the one who sought to best me. You've gotten old. You're mad if you think you can do it again."**_

"There's a thing called outsourcing," Kondraki sneered at it, dashing back to the harpoons as Albtraum stepped forward. "I'm not out of the fight, I've just found myself a better player."

682 seemed to laugh, ignoring Kondraki, leaning down to look closer at Albtraum, its chin nearly touching the ground. _**"You've sent an insect to battle a dragon," **_it sneered back. _**"I wonder how much of a mess you'll make when I step on you. Would they even find anything of you? I could breathe you in and never notice-" **_

Mianna jumped back as 682 roared in pain, falling forward on one of its legs that had just been shot through by the harpoon. In spite of its size, it struggled against the tension of the thick cable, turning its attention to Kondraki for a brief instance – long enough that Albtraum was able to sink the blade made by 2023 into the bottom of its jaw and hold fast.

It reared its head back and roared, shaking and pawing at its jaw. 2023 enveloped Albtraum's other arm, forming another blade, and he alternately hooked each one into the still-soft, newly healed flesh of 682's head, climbing up over its eye. He stopped and held on as it tried to shake him off.

"_**Pest," **_it spat. _**"Those toothpicks will never do any real damage, though."**_

Albtraum was saying something to it, but Mianna couldn't hear him over 682's growling. She saw 2023 form into a single wide, flat blade and Albtraum sank it into 682's eyelid, then leaned back against it like he would a shovel he had sunk into the ground. 682 roared, so loud Mianna's ears were ringing after, and when it turned its head, one of its eyes dangled from a now vacant socket by thick, ropy strands of optic nerve.

Albtraum climbed further, holding to its mane to keep himself from falling as 682 furiously attempted to get him off. He was far past where it could reach him with its claws, but it was a long way down, if he fell.

"_**Brainless insect," **_it snarled. _**"You can't do anything permanent, anyhow." **_Albtraum stopped, saying something else. _**"Good, then after I've slaughtered them all I'll spend the rest of eternity tearing **_**you**_** to shreds." **_Sounded like Albtraum had told it of his own indestructible capabilities.

It stopped its attempts to shake him off for a brief moment. It was tired. It still wasn't fully healed. Its left front leg was bent, and held to the ground by the harpoon and cable. It kept trying to push itself up by its free leg. Mianna lost sight of Albtraum for a moment, he had moved.

"_**You think you can hide while you're standing on me, do you?" **_It turned its head, and Mianna saw Albtraum had jumped down to its shoulder. It looked at him with the eye it had left, in time to see him stab the blade just above its shoulder. It appeared confused for a moment, then its other leg gave out, and the guards at the harpoons on the other side of the bay shot through that one.

It reared against the cables on its back legs, and Albtraum climbed up to its neck by the mane. Kondraki looked at him, and realizing something, he darted away from the wall, out in front of 682.

"_**You just can't stay away from a chance to gloat, Doctor. It will be the death of you." **_Its head drew back, like a snake readying to strike, and then it lunged forward.

Kondraki darted back as Albtraum stepped forward, sinking the blade of 2023 into the back of 682's neck at the base of its skull. There was a slight pause, and then with a rumbling crash, the beast collapsed. It snapped its jaws at Kondraki, but he was out of its reach. Within a minute, the other harpoons were shot into its sides and tail. There were a lot of them – Mianna realized as she looked around that they were mounted all over the bay.

Kondraki grinned at 682. "Who shouldn't gloat, now?"

"_**Feculent worm," **_it growled, murderous. _**"I'll eat you first, when I get out."**_

Albtraum hopped down from the top of its head, holding to its mane before letting go and crossing the floor to Kondraki. Now that the beast was still, the crumbling of the building seemed to have slowed, and a few of the guards from the other side made their way over as Mianna stepped out of the corridor. Mianna saw Ismaire and Cullyn among them when they removed their masks.

"_That _was something else," Ismaire said to Albtraum, whistling. She was still limping. "Guess you are pretty smart, hmm?"

"You went for the dens, just below the skull. How did you know that would paralyze it?" Kondraki asked. "And how did you know to strike there?"

"It's a weak point for all vertebrates," Albtraum explained, panting. "I was just hoping it was structured the same way any vertebrate would be."

"All that reading came in handy," Mianna said to him. "But you're lucky these vague plans you've been making have worked so far. That could have been bad."

"Which is why I wanted you out of here," Albtraum grumbled at her. "I would've figured something out eventually. The entire situation hasn't exactly given me a lot of time for planning."

"I heard over the radio that they're making good progress on the grid," Cullyn informed them. "They estimate it'll be up and running in another sixteen to twenty hours."

"Well, a lot can still go wrong in that time," Kondraki sighed. 682 still stared at him, growling. "We've got hoses connected to the acid wells. Get some guards to keep hosing this thing down, do it in shifts if you have to, but make sure there's a constant flow over it. Collect the excess in buckets, and dump that on it, too."

Cullyn nodded, and turned back to the guards at the wall, instructing them to do what Kondraki had said. Mianna turned her attention back to Albtraum and saw that 2023 had turned into a snake-like shape and coiled loosely around his neck, hanging like a scarf. He looked a bit nervously at it. "Dr. Kondraki, 2023 says Mianna's father gave you a file before he died, and you haven't looked at it, but it has information that may be useful to us in terms of who might have caused the breach."

Kondraki looked alarmed. "How does it know that?"

Albtraum shrugged. "I don't know. Do you have the file?"

Kondraki nodded. "Yeah, I'll take you guys up to my apartment." He motioned for Ismaire to follow them as well, and they removed the acid suits in the corridor. "You shouldn't be walking on that," he said to Ismaire.

She waved him off. "It's braced. Doesn't even hurt."

Kondraki frowned and opened the gate. "We should get back to the bunker. I sort of left Riley there. I'm hoping she doesn't hate us so much that she'd misbehave."

"That's a bit of a tall order," Albtraum grumbled. "Especially if she was hungry when she got out..."

Kondraki laughed to himself. "Not exactly the hunger I was worried about, kiddo."

* * *

To Kondraki's surprise, neither was everyone in the bunker dead nor was Riley attempting to sleep with any of them. Mianna looked around. The parade of bodies being brought in finally seemed to have come to a halt, and they had covered the pile with a tarp. Not enough time had passed that the bunker smelled of death yet, but she knew it was going to soon. There was low chatter throughout the bunker, far quieter than the initial panic that had been there this morning. In the far corner, Mianna heard roaring laughter, and looked over to see Riley and Kaezo, surrounded by a group of guards and researchers.

It took her a moment to realize, as they neared, that Kaezo was telling jokes.

"So a grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, 'Hey, we have a drink named after you!' So the grasshopper looks at him and says, 'What, you've got a drink named Steve?'"

The group guffawed, Riley so loud she could be heard over the rest of them.

"That wasn't that funny," Ismaire muttered to Mianna with an eyebrow raise.

Riley stood and pushed through the group, who had gone quiet as Kaezo told another joke. "Ah, the dream team! So, you really didn't cark it. And the overgrown iguana?"

"Temporarily contained until our backup arrives with the weaponry to further disable it so we can cut off its head and transport it to another facility. It regenerates from the head, but we don't cut it off every time because we don't want a bunch of decaying headless lizard carcasses that weigh thousands of tons piling up," Kondraki explained.

"No need for the formality, Greg. I'd like to think you'd be a little more familiar with me after all we've been through," Riley sneered, reaching up to scratch at his patchy chin stubble.

He flinched away as though her fingers carried an electrical charge. "I was promptly reassigned after I went into your cell _one _time and we-"

"I'd rather not hear the rest of that story, if it's all the same to you," Albtraum said quickly.

Kondraki grumbled and turned back towards the bunker exit that led to Sector 6. Brunhart stood guard. "Good news, Captain, 682 is contained for the moment. Cullyn Skyroko is there overseeing a continued regimen of containment procedures we'll continue until backup from one of our sister facilities arrive."

Brunhart nodded, looking pleased. "They've been notified and are en route."

Mianna remembered something and spoke up. "096 is loose somewhere between sectors 9 and 11."

Brunhart looked mildly alarmed, but nodded to that as well. "I'll see to arranging a task force to bring it into containment again. The issue remains, however," he shifted uncomfortably. "Of finding out who, exactly, is responsible for the damage to the generators and the power grid. They were taken down by precise damages to their software and inner workings, so it was clearly someone who has an intimate knowledge of the setup." He grunted and nodded to Albtraum. "This 2027?"

"Albtraum," Mianna corrected with a nod.

"He practically took down 682 alone," Kondraki added. "Maybe we should see if we can't get them to let him work for us.

Brunhart gave a slight laugh, but then frowned deeply. "More than likely, they'll put him right back in that cell. They wouldn't want one of their charges outdoing them, you know how they are."

"I wouldn't help them anyway," Albtraum said flatly, and Mianna nudged him, worried for Brunhart's response.

Surprisingly, "I can't rightly blame you for that, boy."

Kondraki nodded. "Well, there's still work to do, we need to get something from my apartment."

"You should be moderately safer for the moment," Brunhart explained. "173 has been recontained. 106 and 049 are both still loose, but they're relatively easy to outrun, should you encounter them."

"Good to know," Kondraki said with a nod. He turned to Ismaire. "But if 106 is loose, you shouldn't come." He nodded to her leg.

She snarled at him. "It's not even a debilitating injury!"

"Doesn't matter. We're not chancing it."

Ismaire continued grumbling, but plopped down against the wall.

"Us three will go," Mianna said, taking Albtraum's arm. 2023 had conformed to the shape of his body and held itself in a thin layer on his torso, under the jumper.

Kondraki stepped past Brunhart and out into the hall, Mianna and Albtraum following closely behind. The facility was unusually quiet. Normally Mianna found herself encountering several fellow researchers or guards on her way through the halls, but they were eerily empty. The cafeteria was completely dark.

They took the elevator up to the floor above the B-class apartments. Mianna finally let out an anxious breath, and Albtraum hesitantly put an arm around her.

"We ran into 096," she told Kondraki, breaking the silence that had descended over the group. "Albtraum looked at its face."

Kondraki looked back at them, eyes wide. "You didn't. How did you get it off your tail...?"

"I took it to pieces with 2023," Albtraum said. "It was putting itself back together, but I think chopping it up like that makes it go into its docile state again." He grimaced. "I hope."

"Yeah, me too." Kondraki shook his head as they stepped off the elevator. "Must've been horrible."

Albtraum nodded though Kondraki wasn't looking at him, and they started off down a long hallway of residence doors. There was a significant amount more space between each door than the B-class residences, Mianna noted.

Finally, Kondraki came to an abrupt halt. "Here we are," he said, swiping his keycard in the door and stepping in. He turned the lights on, though they still flickered, as they stepped into the room. He made a beeline for the back of the apartment without saying anything else.

Mianna looked around and felt a heaviness in her chest. The apartment was fairly well-kept and clean, but nearly every surface in the kitchen and living areas was stocked with empty bottles of scotch and vodka. She supposed it should have been obvious to her, from the casual way he drank after every shift, and how he wasn't visibly affected even after his third or fourth drink. She thought of Ismaire. _Her, too, probably._

Kondraki came back after a few minutes, holding a folder. He saw Mianna peering around and looked ashamed.

"It, ah... Got easier, after a while, to just drown everything in the bottom of a bottle," He explained sheepishly. Mianna responded with a look of pity, and he hurriedly led them out the door, shutting it behind them.


	10. 10 TO THE EDGE

**.10 TO THE EDGE**

When they stepped out into the hall, Kondraki removed the string clasp from the folder. It was dusty, he must not have touched it since the day it had been given to him, and the folder was in pristine condition. It didn't appear that he'd ever opened it. He pulled out a file with a handwritten note attached to the front by a paperclip.

"From your dad," he informed Mianna. He started reading it, holding the file so Mianna could as well.

_Kondraki-_

_I'm long gone by the time you read this, I assume. They won't tell you how I died – they killed me. My children will soon work in the facility, and I hope that you work with them. I trust you as a colleague and a friend to guide them and help them be successful._

_Regarding my work with Dr. Kuloth – I've taken this file from him, and I don't believe he's noticed yet, but it contains his records of the true nature of his work with 2023. _

_Only a select few council members are privy to this information, but it explains in much greater depth things Dr. Kuloth has kept hidden about 2023 and 2027. I hope and pray that you are never forced into a position you have to read this file, but I know well enough to know otherwise._

_-Skyroko_

Mianna felt her heartbeat quicken as Kondraki pulled the letter from the front of the file. In bold white lettering, the front read _SCP-2023. _But the cover was not green, as it should have been to denote a Safe class.

It was black.

"What does black mean?" she asked with concern. She glanced back and found Albtraum frowning.

"Thaumiel class," Kondraki answered, so quiet she could barely hear him.

Mianna had never heard of such a thing. "What?"

"They're SCPs that have capabilities beyond what we can fully understand. Generally, they're used for decommissioning Keter and Euclid class SCPs that need it. But... Normally a Thaumiel is kept in a separate facility..."

"Someone doesn't want it widely known it's a Thaumiel," Albtraum said, and it took Mianna a moment to realize he was repeating what 2023 had just told him. "And I don't think it's any mystery who."

"Dr. Kuloth," Mianna agreed with a nod.

Kondraki nodded and opened the file to read it, Mianna reading along with him, and Albtraum peering over their shoulders at it.

_SCP-2023 is an omniform, typically amorphous black liquid-like mass. It is sentient, sapient, and highly intelligent. It is able to conform to any shape, usually something useful to its host, but it has been documented spontaneously forming into random shapes. It can be broken up into multiple parts, and theoretically used by multiple hosts._

_Tests reveal SCP-2023 bonds to a "host" if it does not already have one. If it already has a host, it will only bond to another host if that host shares first-degree blood relation to the original host. It is unclear whether this moves in ascending order of bloodline as well as descending. 2023 can then physically detach from its host and the effects will remain in the host in its absence._

_Once bonded to a host, henceforth referred to as SCP-2023-1, 2023 causes permanent physiological changes which so far have been tested to include:_

_-An ability to survive with an ignorance of bodily needs_

_-Regeneration of all damaged tissue_

_-Aging ceases past natural adulthood (or at the time of bonding, if the host is already an adult)_

_-Ability to gain energy through a process similar to photosynthesis – though powered by an absence of light, rather than a presence of it. (This process is not necessary to retain vital function.)_

_-Enhanced physical strength, stamina, and speed_

_-In some hosts, increased aggression and destructiveness, the degree to which varies depending upon the host._

_Tests reveal the only way to deal non-recoverable damage to 2023-1 is to injure them with a weapon formed out of SCP-2023._

"That's why it's a Thaumiel," Kondraki said grimly. "Because it could..." Kondraki looked back at Albtraum, who was frowning and looked nervous. "And this means you've been misclassified. You're not a separate SCP at all, you're an instance of SCP-2023-1."

Mianna glanced over the information in the file and then shut it. "Do you think Dr. Kuloth is an instance as well?"

"I'd bet money on it. Increased aggression and destructiveness? Might be why he set off the breach. But if Al is a host of this stuff too, then that means he's your father..."

Albtraum sighed and shook his head, as if he'd figured that. "We should try to kill him as soon as possible, so he can't do more."

Mianna nodded. "Yes, we should. His office is nearby, we might start there."

"Kondraki," Albtraum started to say as they started off in that direction. "Since I'm not a separate SCP, do you think... Do you think they'll let me stay out when the breach is over?"

Kondraki frowned at him. "I sure hope so, kid, but I can't say for sure."

Mianna took his hand, but this time it didn't seem to make him feel any better. "We'll figure something out."

He nodded, and said nothing else.

* * *

Dr. Kuloth's office door was closed when they reached it. Kondraki approached, tried the handle, and found it locked.

"Fucker might have himself holed up in there," he said to Albtraum and Mianna, and slammed the butt of the rifle he still carried into the door, just above the handle. It swung open, and he charged inside, Albtraum and Mianna following closely.

Dr. Kuloth had been sitting at his desk, and rose as they entered. "You managed to contain 682," he said, taking a step back. It was dark in his office, the lights were off and it was dark outside. Albtraum pulled Mianna close to him, and slowly moved in front of her. "You're putting everything back in order that I had so wonderfully taken to chaos."

"You're a fucked up piece of shit, you know that?" Kondraki said in a low voice. "Experimenting on your own fucking son. How old was he when you started dunking him in the darkness soup?"

To Mianna's surprise, Dr. Kuloth regarded him disdainfully for a moment, then answered. "A few days old. I had tried so many different people, after myself, you see. None of them turned up anything. I was curious. I told his mother he'd been taken from her care for a routine observation by the medical staff and I took him here. When my theory proved true and 2023 bonded to him as it had to me, I told her he was dead. She left, then, and didn't come back. To this day I don't know where she's gone."

"So you told the research staff that you'd just happened to stumble upon this child with strange abilities, but you left out that you had made him that way yourself, and they dubbed him 2027, and here we are." Kondraki snorted, stepping forward very carefully. "You couldn't tell them you'd done it to yourself, too, or they'd lock you up in the facility and run tests on _you. _Un-fucking-believable."

Kuloth watched him carefully, stepping forward and around the desk, hands held behind his back. "They were starting to think 2023 wouldn't turn up any more valuable research. They accused me of wasting my time. I moved to working on 2027, then – and through fabricated conjecture in my reports I suggested there may have been a connection between him and 2023. I gained the approval to start running tests with it, all the while working on my proposal to reclassify 2023 to Thaumiel. But Albtraum wasn't behaving. They deemed him dangerous, and discontinued any research not aimed at killing him, and I gave up hope that I'd ever be taken seriously on that front."

"My father knew all of this. After incident 2027-1 he started to put the pieces together, and you killed him for that," Mianna said then, peering at him angrily from where she stood behind Albtraum.

"It was never anything personal, but your father was likely to expose me, and I would be terminated from the Council, and probably the entirety of my employment, if he did. I did what I had to to protect my job – anyone would," Kuloth responded, taking another step forward.

Kondraki snarled at him. "So now, you were mad you weren't ever going to get anywhere testing 2023 without exposing yourself, and you decided to take the whole damn facility out. Well, joke's on you, because that didn't work, and now we know everything you've done. People may laugh at me among the research staff, Kuloth, but the council takes me very seriously, I assure you."

Mianna heard the gunshot before she saw the handgun in Dr. Kuloth's hand.

"They won't if you're dead."

Horrified, Mianna turned to look at Kondraki. He'd been hit just below the ribcage, on his left side. He growled in pain and clutched at the wound as Kuloth was lining up a second shot.

Before he could, Albtraum had lunged at him, 2023 forming to a blade from his arm. He slashed at Kuloth, taking him by surprise, catching him in the chest, but he moved back quickly enough that the gash was not very deep.

He tossed the gun away, sneering, as a blade extended from his own arm, under his sleeve. He must have had a part of 2023 with him all along. "You think anyone will listen to you, if you kill me? An SCP and a B-class's word against mine?"

Albtraum snarled at Kuloth and lunged again, but this time, he was ready, and deflected Albtraum's swing with his own blade, making a screech unlike metal on metal, even, glass on glass. Albtraum faltered to the side enough that Kuloth was able to slash down at his head, the blade embedding a few inches into the base of his neck as he dodged.

Albtraum used his closeness as an advantage, however, and stabbed his own blade just below Kuloth's shoulder.

For a moment, neither moved, then Kuloth stepped back, and Albtraum leaned heavily against the desk as Kuloth walked backwards to the door. Kondraki, leaning against the wall, now, watched him go, pointing his rifle at him as he went.

"It's still your word against mine," Kuloth hissed to Albtraum, then looked to Kondraki. "If either of you survive, that is." He turned and disappeared down the hall.

Mianna stood frozen, looking between Albtraum and Kondraki, unsure of which issue to address first. Albtraum had sat down in Kuloth's desk chair and held the side of his neck. There was blood everywhere. Kondraki was closer. She looked to him first.

"Don't," he grunted. "Don't worry about me. I'm old."

"You're thirty-seven," Mianna said incredulously, stepping over to him.

"Thirty-eight, actually," he muttered.

Before he or Mianna could say anything else, Albtraum had stepped over and pulled Kondraki to his feet. "Is there a med room somewhere nearby?" he asked, barely audible.

"Down a level near the B-class apartments," Mianna answered, looking between them, frustratingly unsure of what to do. She should have known what to do, but she couldn't seem to think of anything.

Thankfully, Albtraum seemed coherent enough to start dragging Kondraki along as he headed towards the elevator, though he was barely standing himself. Mianna hovered near him as he swayed unsteadily, and it seemed like eternity before they reached the elevator. Blood still oozed from the deep gash, at the juncture between Albtraum's neck and shoulder.

"You're an idiot," Kondraki informed him as they stumbled into the elevator. Blood dripped from his hand he had pressed against his side, there was so much blood, blood on everything. "You're worse off."

"You're old," Albtraum huffed. "I figure it all evens out."

Mianna stepped in after them, feeling herself start to go weak with panic. "What are we going to do?" she asked Kondraki, tugging at her sleeves nervously.

"We'll figure something out," he grunted, swaying a bit as the elevator began to move. He glanced at Albtraum. "He's going to need a transfusion. I probably won't, but..." He groaned, shifting from foot to foot in pain. "Bullet's still in there, I think."

Albtraum stumbled forward when the elevator opened, no longer able to support Kondraki, and Mianna caught his arm to keep him from collapsing, hurriedly tugging him towards one of the gurneys. He steadied himself enough to climb on to one and lay turned slightly on his side. It was dark in the med bay, and Mianna was hoping with everything she had that the power would still be on for the things they needed.

She took a deep breath. She'd had only very informal medical training and wasn't entirely sure of what to do. Kondraki was already examining his own injury, and handed her a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, which he produced from seemingly nowhere. "Light one of those for me, would you, sweetheart?"

"Dr. Kondraki," she started, exasperated, "I don't know that this is the best time for you to-"

"I'm going to need it for this, trust me."

Hesitantly, she did what he asked, and carefully handed the lit cigarette to him. He held it in his mouth as he stood to gather a few supplies, motioning for her to follow. He hobbled over to a large metal storage closet, which was filled with rough, heavy blankets. They felt slightly warm when he handed them to her, like they had been through a dryer a while ago.

"Gotta keep his temp up. He's lost a ridiculous amount of blood. Shouldn't be alive." Kondraki picked up a pair of forceps, and went back to sit on the edge of his own gurney. Mianna walked back over to Albtraum, draping the blankets over him. He felt too cold already. "There's a blood type tester in the second cabinet, I think. Should be battery powered and hopefully it's working," Kondraki said as he rolled up his shirt and was dealing with his own injury.

Mianna found the device where Kondraki said she would, and pressed the power button, walking back over to Albtraum. For a split second, she was distracted from her panic and marveled at the thing, remembering that when she'd been a student, a relatively complicated test was still necessary to determine blood type. A small paper like a litmus strip emerged from the end and she dipped it in the blood on his neck. The machine withdrew the paper back into itself, and a few seconds passed before the screen flashed. She squinted to read it in the dark.

"B Negative," she said to Kondraki.

"Goddamnit," Kondraki huffed, letting out a cloud of smoke. "Picky motherfucker. Check the storage. We might need to make a cocktail of B and O types and hope it works."

When Mianna looked over, she saw him digging in the bullet wound with the forceps, hissing and wincing in pain as he did. She managed to tear her gaze away and walk over to the blood storage. There were all manner of positive types, but she had to make her way to the back and bottom of the cabinet before coming up with one B Negative and one O Negative. It wasn't very much, but hopefully it would keep Albtraum alive, at the very least.

By the time Mianna was carrying the blood bags back over, the bullet that had been embedded in Kondraki's abdomen was set on the side table in a small puddle of blood, and he was already deftly sewing up the wound with the suture, stopping occasionally to take a drag from the cigarette.

"The smokes steady my hands," he explained as he finished and taped a gauze around the stitched wound. He carefully stood and took the blood from Mianna, grimacing at Albtraum, who was barely conscious. "I'll get this set up."

Mianna turned around to face Albtraum, nervously pulling the collar of his jumper down and wiping away what blood she could with an alcohol wipe from a dispenser on the table.

"That hurts," he informed her weakly.

"I know, I'm sorry." She frowned and got another wipe. She didn't think she'd ever seen someone bleed so much and live. Still more blood was slowly trickling from the deep gash. She brushed the hair from his clammy forehead. "We'll get this taken care of."

He winced, then, and she turned to see that Kondraki had stuck a very large needle into the inside of his elbow, starting the transfusion. He moved over to Albtraum's other side, Mianna moving out of the way by sitting at the end of the gurney.

Kondraki started at the open gash with a suture. Albtraum stared at Mianna miserably as Kondraki worked, puffing smoke occasionally as he went.

"Don't those kill you?" Albtraum asked groggily, motioning at the cigarette.

"You think I'm worried about that after just being shot?"

Mianna realized something and dashed over to the supply cabinet. Albtraum turned his head to watch her, and Kondraki huffed and pushed his head back the way he'd had it. Mianna stood on her toes to see the top shelf of the cabinet and found what she'd been looking for, a few small glass jars reading "5% glucose". She took them down and carried them over, twisting the top off one and turning to Kondraki.

"Here," she said, holding it out to him. "You might not need a transfusion, but your blood volume is still down."

He responded with a wobbly grin, stopping mid-stitch and holding his cigarette in his hand as he gulped down the sugar water. "Thanks, sweetheart." He handed her back the empty jar, which she set on the table as she watched him continue stitching.

In the rush she'd been in, she hadn't really had the time to notice how terrible they both looked. Kondraki still didn't look completely steady on his feet, and Albtraum was all but colorless from the blood he'd lost. She drew the blankets up further around his shoulders, and sat down on the stool next to the gurney, taking his hand. Still colder than he should have been.

He looked at her, half awake, mumbling, "We still have to do something about Kuloth."

"Don't worry about that right now," she replied. Kondraki had moved on to gauze and bandages, and Mianna finally felt the tension in her shoulders subside, if only a small amount.

When he'd finished, Kondraki flicked the butt of his cigarette over his shoulder, seemingly without a care as to where it landed. "You gonna die on us tonight?" he asked Albtraum with a huff.

"I'll try not to," Albtraum answered, nearly unintelligibly.

"Please don't," Mianna said, a sound escaping her that was supposed to be a laugh but sounded like anything but.

Kondraki nodded, trudging back to the other gurney. "Yeah, seems like it'd be a bit of a waste by this point, after all that."

"I'll try... not to," Albtraum repeated, shifting slightly as he tried to get comfortable. He had gained back a faint amount of color, but he still made her nervous. "What should we do?"

Mianna thought hard about that, looking down at his hand in hers. "Kuloth has this facility. There's not much we can do about that. But... The Foundation council might hear Kondraki out, if we can get to the headquarters."

He nodded.

She sighed. "But if they don't, we'll just keep running, I suppose."

"You'd abandon the Foundation?" he asked.

She bit her lip and realized she'd been turning his hand over in hers, worrying at his palm and fingers. His hands were thin and bony, like the rest of him. "If they'd do anything to us, then... They're not the noble and well-intentioned organization I thought they were. Well, obviously not _here, _but..." She sighed. "If that's true, none of them are."

Albtraum was falling asleep and didn't seem to be listening intently anymore. "We'll just keep going," he mumbled. "Keep running till we hit the edge of the world."

"The earth is spherical, Albtraum." She leaned against the bed, resting her head on his shoulder. "It doesn't have an edge."

He laughed once, slow and tired. "Sure it does."

Mianna was alseep before she could argue further.


End file.
